I'MMA LET YOU FINISH
I am never first
Alea iacta est!
41 probably read it and told 43 to give him an audience.
Holy crap - time to leave!
- oh, fuck bush
Frifth?
Yeah, right, he hasn't read a book since My Pet Goat.
was this professor co-opted?
Gotta love that empire-building thing that Bismarck had going.
Somewhat OT:
Me at age 4 vs. Santorum
So, does grand strategy require torture?
lb0313 --
Congratulations on a first! (but I think that's the wrong message)
> Yeah, right, he hasn't read a book since My Pet Goat.
Perhaps a little hyperbolic, but nonetheless, I'm skeptical too. Remember, this White House crew is all about PR over substance.
Besides, even if he did read the book, after checking out Gaddis' speech (posted at the second link) it is not clear to me that Bush would actually recognize all the criticisms as such.
Avoiding critical thought and making decisions unsupported by evidence are apparently virtues by W's reckoning.
Well, if you read Gaddis' full speech and post, you'll see he's far, far, far from the "opposition." He most likely hit a nerve that someone in the inner sanctum was already pissed off about and they wrote a 3x5 card for Tipsy to read from. My most likely candidate: Powell, given a farewell "fuck you"...
Sorry, that should be "giving" not "given"...
Wonder if Bush asks to meet with all the authors whose books he reads.
Bil Keane must be getting tired of flying to D.C by now.
this professor is stating what he wishes were true, now what is. He obviously had not read the memo or of the memo when he wrote this. Despite all evidence to the contrary, he seems to accept bush as honest.
Me at age 4 vs. Santorum
Nim
That is freaking hilarious! Great photo!
"Tell me about Bismark."
Jesus H. Christ on a broken crutch, that guy is insane. Bush thinks he is creating a new world order.
That is freaking hilarious! Great photo!
Hehe. Thanks. I saw that NYT soft-focus nonsense and, after I got done throwing up a little in my mouth, realized it looked exactly like that goofy picture of me from the 70s that my relatives like to pass around and laugh at. When it's a 4 year old kid, it's comedy. When it's a deranged fundie senator, it's serious journalism. Unnerstand? 
By "The Boss" and "President", I assume they mean Cheney because I can't imagine Gaddis's book had pictures.
Typical of the commentors here: even Avedon is willing to give Bush credit for openmindedness, but not this rabble.
Me at age 4 vs. Santorum
Nim
You have a better smile too.
Bush, I'm fairly sure, reads a digest of the Cliff Notes when one of his handlers gives it to him.
It makes perfect sense that Unka Karl would be trying to get some 'respectable' academics to tell us all what a literate, well read 'average' guy Cuckoo Bananas really is.
Prior Aelred - thanks.... the wrong message is the one in the prof's story.
We don't rant about Bush because it is more fun than thinking, we rant because this is destroying our country and killing people.
Taking this story at face value: President reads a book. Asks 20 minutes of questions from the author. Recommends that his advisors read the book.
And this is news?!?!?!
Sounds like a load of PR Bullshit to me.
A little worried...
Prof describes Bismarck as having “replaced his destabilizing strategy with a new one aimed at consolidation and reassurance – at persuading his defeated enemies as well as nervous allies and alarmed bystanders that they would be better off living within the new system he had imposed on them than by continuing to fight or fear it.”
Now wonder Bush wants to know more about Bismarck. He would love America to just accept where he's dragging us. The problem is that the new system he's trying to impose on us is wrong on so many levels, and should be fought and feared.
By "The Boss" and "President", I assume they mean Cheney because I can't imagine Gaddis's book had pictures.
By "The Boss" they meant James Dobson.
Santorum is so gay in that photo (not that there's anything wrong with that).
Nim,
I like your tie better...
Oh, good lord. Everyone's in tank tops....
Bush thinks he is creating a new world order.
grytpype
Just noticing that?
Seriously, though, if he thinks he's ready for the consolidation phase of the Empire, he is in for a rude awakening.
The tighter he squeezes- and the more missionairies he sends end- the more vicious the opposition will get.
His partners the Saudi jihadists want no such consolidation, and although they'll continue to bankroll his folly, they'll also stir the Iraqi and Palestinian pot to keep it boiling.
His minions the NeoTheoCons don't want consolidation either. They want action and Empire and Oil and the new military hardware funding. There are a hundred thousand of them agitating a hundred million mindless chickenhawk Faux News zombies.
It's hard to say which group holds more personal danger for our self deluded preznit, who actually thinks he's in control of the tiger he's riding.
So how did Germany make out post-Bismark?
The President has read your book, and has told all of us to read it.
the chimp is gonna tell everyone to read a book- including his boss gepetto cheney and his better colon powell- horse shit- i'm with St. Paul
I think Preznit Fredo (aka Commander Cuckoo Bananas) was actually asking about a jelly doughnut & was terribly misunderstood
OR he thinks that after ding EVERYTHING wrong for 4 1/2 years, some author can tell him how to straighten things out in 20 minutes
OY VEY IS MIR!
Well, I'm sure glad we won over there and that the troops are coming home. How about some freedom at home, hey? Isn't there a secret markup or something of the patriot Act, chapter 2 this week coming? This is exactly the way the neocons talk, and that is exactly what's happened to this stooge. Straussed.
Okay, I've read the weblog article in question, and, um, it's kind of hard to get much enthusiasm for that professor's arguments.
The teeny details that there's a full-fledged counter-revolution going on in Iraq and that Afghanistan is in a state of complete anarchy are ignored, as are the teeny details that, five years on, there's absolutely no motion in Palestine and that the so-called "democratic reforms" just don't seem to be happening, well those are just swept under the rug so they won't detract from the polished rhetoric.
And I really don't see that it's any damn improvement for the people of Iraq that it's not the United States of America that is torturing people to death, razing cities, and murdering civilians by the 10s of thousands. But those are really impressive goals that Maximum Leader Genius says he's trying for, so that's more important than what's actually happening!
Grrr. They're all assholes on the Evil Party bus. All of them.
Thank god we are saved from that assinine bad movie thread. Shit.
Now wonder Bush wants to know more about Bismarck. He would love America to just accept where he's dragging us. The problem is that the new system he's trying to impose on us is wrong on so many levels, and should be fought and feared.
Drunkee
Drunkee, I think this a very perceptive post.
I also think that we progressives are making a big mistake by relying on the fact that Mr. Bush is stupid, silly, ignorant, whatever. The man is devious and probably very smart.
Whether it is due to the efforts of him or his handlers, this country is on the way to being given to the highest bidders. If we don't stop laughing and start working to unseat this effort, we are going to lose big time.
Just saying
I haven't read the professor's entire piece published on May 16, 2005 but I did read to the point where he says that "deception about WMD has not been proven". I'm sure it's a great rush to be invited to the White House and all and have the president whateverhisnameis say he's read it and "Let's talk" but has this person seen the smoking gun memo?
So, nevermind that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11.
And "Occam's Razor" my ass, on two points. Gaddis presumes that Bush should be lauded for because he "what he means is what he believes." Results of Bush's actions, presumably, do not matter. Secondly, Gaddis posits that Bush couldn't have launched the war for oil, because it would have been easier to cut a deal with Saddam. Fair enough. But aren't 16 permanent military bases in the center of Oil Land much better?
I am not a pacifist. I had no qualms about invading Afghanistan and toppling the Taliban. But the fact remains that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11, and the Bush administration lied about it. This fact is glossed over, cleverly, by Gaddis. Gaddis submits that the Bush administration was wrong, but ignores that they were deliberately "wrong" by conflating Al Qaeda and Iraq. Gaddis also says that the American people don't seem to care, so what's the big deal?
Most of the American people were manipulated into believing that Saddam had something to do with 9/11. They are finding out he did not, and as Iraq turns into a more gargantuan nightmare every day, the American people are growing increasingly pissed.
Thank you, dear avedon.
In the interests of full disclosure, I can confirm that I paid my own way down and back, plus taxi and hotel accommodations. I did not attend under an alias. I did, however, accept lunch with the group in the White House mess. And, at the suggestion of Mr. Rove, I consumed a dessert listed on the menu as a “chocolate freedom tart.” Prior to the United Nations debate over the invasion of Iraq, I understand, this dessert had a French name.
Hahaahahaha. Fucking WH infantile idiots.
"openminded"? I dunno about that, but yeah, I can see him getting into a book that he could use to justify his actions.
Remember, when the subject is his war, he speaks quite well- because he's *interested* in it. Domestic stuff? "What Karl says"
Fun to bash his intellect, but in a lot of ways not productive- if he was half as stupid as we like to think there's no way the Big Money would have got behind him the way it did in the late 1990s.
I read that whole letter (article) and it sounded like 2 different people wrote it.
Was that guy dazzled by the lights in the White House?
When it's a 4 year old kid, it's comedy. When it's a deranged fundie senator, it's serious journalism. Unnerstand?
Nim
HAW HAW! That's also what really cracked me up... the Fetus Fondler has the facial expressions of a FOUR YEAR OLD!
I am a Pennsylvania voter and I will do all I can to show this Virginia resident the door next election...
Diane:
Absolutely. Given the anti-intellectual currently on display in America, progressives score no points with impugning Bush's brain.
It's simply not a winning strategy. There needs to be more kicking of balls by our side.
Gaddis is a smart guy and always worth reading but his recent takes on the Iraq War are not very encouraging. He seems to still buy the pre-emptive war garbage. See here, for example.
...if he was half as stupid as we like to think there's no way the Big Money would have got behind him the way it did in the late 1990s.
Unless, nick, the Big Time Dick wanted to use the fool for a front man.
I love Gaddis, but who the hell stole his brain and common sense?! To repeat the often repeated, Bush doesn't want 'democracy', he wants governments he can control, whether you call them democratic or despotic. Yep, me thinks JLG was co-opted.
I attended a couple of talks by Gaddis on the subject a little over a year ago (March of '04) and talked to him a little afterwards (we're in the same field, only I'm still working on my PhD). At the time, Gaddis pretty much rejected out of hand the idea that the Bushies planned Iraq out ahead of time, seeing it as an at least semi-rational reaction to 9/11. Note that this was after the Paul O'Neill revalations, which he completely discounted, though before Clarke and the others joined the chorus.
Gaddid, I think, had grown more critical of the war since, but that's in a large part because EVERYONE in diplomatic history, informed as we have to be on the many similar disasters of the past, can see where this is likely to go. You're not going to find a respected diplomatic historian anymore who isn't incredibly skeptical about any chance for stability in Iraq.
S in Mich --
You do realize that the only reason that Fredo invaded Afghanistan was because Blair told him that he wouldn't support our invasion of Iraq unless Commander Cuckoo Bananas took out the Taliban first (see infamous Downing Street Memo which American MSM continues to ignore)
Pacifist Prior in Mich
I'm less impressed by the provenance of the professor, or the reported actions of Bush and his staff, than I am by the argument made in the speech.
Who speaks, doesn't interest me. That's an argument ad hominem, and I'll have none of it. An idea is not bad because Bush espouses it, anymore than it is bad because Michael Moore espouses it.
But that raises a question for me: the paucity of thought in labelling something "in short, the Michael Moore view of history" is a bit of a red flag. Michael Moore is raising valid questions that may or may not have an impact on history. For any historian to argue, as this speech does, that History is "Hegelian" (i.e., driven by "historical forces") is, especially in the post-Hitler world, specious at best. I'm a bit stunned any respected historian would ignore the power of individuals and personality on the course of historical events, but that statement alone sweeps aside any such thought as specious and ridiculous.
Which leads me directly, in a short comment space, to two questions: why should I listen to this guy, and, more appropriate to an internet based text: why should I believe this speech is valid?
The law speaks of a "chain of custody" in establishing evidence of validity, and textual criticism teaches us not to accept a text at face value until it's provenance is established. Is this, indeed, the speech given by Professor Gaddis? That he teaches at Yale, and was asked to give the speech, I will accept.
But, for centuries, some of the greatest minds in the world accepted the letters of Paul as the work of one man, and the gospels as the work of four men, alone. Scholarship now knows better.
So before I accept the claims of this speech, or argue it's merits (which are dubious, IMHO), I want to establish its authenticity first.
And none of the links I've followed so far, do that.
Color me skeptical, until convinced not to be.
After stealing the election in 2000, Bush fell asleep at the wheel so 9/l could happen. Then he let bin Laden and al Qaeda literally get away with nmurder so he could concentrate on starting an unnecessary, ilegal, immoral war on false pretenses in Iraq. At home he's raped the poor and robbed the middle class to enable the rich to get richer. And so forth. So fuck him.
Gaddis was singing this same tune in Jan. 2003 on Frontline. He's no member of the opposition who's come to see the light of BushCo's grand strategic greatness.
And the image of the entire Yale History dept ignoring History because they didn't recognize that the first great president of the 21st century was making it? I don't buy it and I'm not sure Gaddis can read minds. But it makes a good "librul academics are horrible" story.
‘less I see a sobbing plea for forgiveness, followed hari-kari live on nationwide teevee, I won’t believe that the motherfucker has clued into anything.
kelley b: well, yeah, on the whole I'd agree Bush is the front man- I'm just saying there is more there than we care to admit (it wouldn't be hard, ya know?)
By the way, I see Jeffraham P is around & apparently in good condition- simply a victim of namestealing?
Does this book that this Professor Gaddis wrote that Bush sez everyone's got to read have -- like -- a title or anything of that sort?
Sorry if it was already mentioned somewhere... don't see it... slow-witted, I 'spose.
Most of the American people were manipulated into believing that Saddam had something to do with 9/11. They are finding out he did not, and as Iraq turns into a more gargantuan nightmare every day
Word. How repulsive does it have to get before the public at large tells Bu$hCo to fuck off with all the lying, scamming and manipulation?
I see Jeffraham P is around & apparently in good condition- simply a victim of namestealing?
yep.
Gaddis was singing this same tune in Jan. 2003 on Frontline. He's no member of the opposition who's come to see the light of BushCo's grand strategic greatness.
Was gonna say: according to JG's link to Molnilla, Gaddis publishes (or will publish) an essay in TNR.
Apparently he's not exactly a devotee of The Nation and a follower of the political theories of Chomsky.
That, in itself, still means nothing as to his argument. But his presentation of himself as a Bush critic: well, clearly he ain't no Michael Moore.
I'm not impressed. Bush reads. Wow. As said above, the key to Bush is clearly Bismarck. Not reassuring.
Gaddis is so full of shit, I wouldn't even know where to begin...
Agree with previous posters: this guy Gaddis is hardly a member of the "opposition." Read his speech; it smells of the Kool-Aid.
the blogger you cite is certainly a right-wing blowhard. I call BS. This story is a plant.
So who was bitching about liberal professors?
News flash! Horowitz is still full of shit!
This blogger's breathless, Sullivan-esque excitement that the Administration "gets it" and that the whole Halliburton thing must be an urban legend -- it's just so charmingly retro-2002.
Tell me about Bismark."
Jesus H. Christ on a broken crutch, that guy is insane. Bush thinks he is creating a new world order.
grytpype
My email address used to be sinkthebismarck@yadda yadda
I see Jeffraham P is around & apparently in good condition- simply a victim of namestealing?
Maybe. Or perhaps just a case of popping off. Whatever. It's good to know the horrors were not founded.
I have no idea what Atrois is thinking on this issue, perhaps he has never read Gaddis. The book, as with much of Gaddis's work, is a throw back to the conservatism of cold war realism ie. support the dictators who support you. Regardly, of the failure of the Bush Doctrine a return to a foriegn policy situated on cooperative dictators is a terrible mistake. In fact it is exactly the same mistake that allowed the Bush doctrine to come to fruition. Does any one else see a circular pattern of policies and events?
It's very likely Bush is dyslexic. He relies on others to read for him.
RMJ:
I agree wholeheartedly with your arguments, except for this little nit:
An idea is not bad because Bush espouses it, anymore than it is bad because Michael Moore espouses it.
I would argue that, empirically, an argument IS bad because Bush espouses it.
Tough to think of one argument he's made that isn't, in its final execution, bad.
was this the book he was reading?
"The Empress of Prussia" is all about the Kaisers, and Bismarck, which set the stage for WW I&II.
The writer prints the letters that went back and forth between Victoria and her daughter Vicky, the Empress.
Good Book
Gaddis?
"He's beboppin' and skattin' and I'm losin' it !!!!"
"One is that no weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq. But every intelligence agency in the world also believed that they were there, and it may be that Saddam Hussein believed that also. That they weren’t, was universally unexpected."
Sorry, but that's bullshit....
This part that is:
"That they weren’t, was universally unexpected."
I don't care what anyone says, Bush can't read! He hasn't done one single thing in the past 4 1/2 years that points to a fleck of literacy.
Does this book that this Professor Gaddis wrote that Bush sez everyone's got to read have -- like -- a title or anything of that sort?
Ché Pasa
His most current book (and I assume the one that's the center of GWB's interest is: "Surprise, Security, and the American Experience."
If you go to Amazon.com, they list his other books.
Still, you're right, none of the links are clear as to which book grabbed the Resident's attention.
OT, but....
from Raw Story, a Reaganite speaks of impeachment.
Is "chocolate freedom tart" W's new nickname for Condi?
So fucking what if Bush read Gaddis' book or not?
Really. What could it possibly matter at this point? They have done far too much damage to this country and to the world, and it doesn't look as though they intend to stop any time soon.
namestealing is getting to be the only thing the trools have left...*pathetic*.
Has the infestation began? This one has to draw them in like magnets.
OK then, I check for meself.
Speaking of WMD's not being in Iraq. The French, Germans and Russians all knew there were no WMDs. It was just England and the USA that swallowed Chalabi, Feith and Wolfowitz etc. bull shit.
Tough to think of one argument he's made that isn't, in its final execution, bad.
flory
Well, flory, that's just consistency.
If he wasn't the President, I couldn't fault him for it.
Does this book that this Professor Gaddis wrote that Bush sez everyone's got to read have -- like -- a title or anything of that sort?
I believe the book in question is Surprise, Security, and the American Experience and if you look at some of the reviews of it here, I'm not so surprised Bush liked it and wants his staff to read it.
E.g., from the Publishers Weekly review:
'The post–September 11 strategy of the Bush administration is often described as a radical departure from U.S. policy. Gaddis, one of America's leading scholars of foreign policy and international relations, provocatively demonstrates that, to the contrary, the principles of preemption, unilateralism and hegemony go back to the earliest days of the republic. Gaddis resurrects the 18th-century idea of an "empire of liberty": whether as a universal principle or in an American context, liberty could flourish only in an empire that provided safety.... The events of September 11 extended the concept of preemptive action even at the expense of sovereignty when terrorism is involved. Gaddis describes this latest expansion of American power in response to surprise attack as a volatile mixture of prudence and arrogance. But instead of the usual caveats, he recommends the U.S. continue on an interventionist course, and he has no qualms about calling America the best hope of liberty in the eyes of most of the earth's inhabitants....'
Sounds like music to Neocon ears, to me.
I also think that we progressives are making a big mistake by relying on the fact that Mr. Bush is stupid, silly, ignorant, whatever. The man is devious and probably very smart.
I go back and forth on this so much depending on what day it is.
No matter if he really believes what he's saying, or being told, or whatever. I still don't agree with the president's beliefs. I don't care how righteous Gaddis thinks it all is. It's still wrong.
Avedon, you've been DUPED.. this Gaddis is a Trojan horse's ass and you have linked to another rightwing blowhard who would have you believe Bush is a great visionary. BULLshit.
4.5 billion citizens of the REST of the World can't be wrong: Bush has fucked it up good.
To believe his words is Gaddis's first mistake. Words are cheap.
To deny that Iraq is a quagmire entirely of Bush's making is simply cognitive dissonance.
The implicitly argue that what has been done in Iraq is the ONLY way to have done it is partisan mumbo-jumbo.
To claim that "every intelligence agency in the world" believed in Saddam's WMDs is just not true.
But to me the ultimate wank is where he says that all Bush needs is 50% plus one of voters in America to do whatever he wants.
Which brings me back to the other 4.5 billion people on the planet, who demonstrably don't want anything to do with Bush, the neocons, or their crazy policies.
What the hell? From the link:
"That’s why I found it so frustrating, at noon on Inauguration Day, to find that nobody in the Yale History Department had the speech on as it was being delivered. All the television sets were unplugged, and of course my generation of professors doesn’t know, on short notice, how to plug them in program them. So I missed it. The speech just wasn’t considered important."
Are Yale perfessers this deeply weird? You couldn't turn on a fucking TV set or have found a radio? You're too dumb for streaming internet? You're not aware that you can just read the fucking thing later, and who cares?
And, what? Yale Perfessers routinely WATCH TELEVISION in their offices? I've never been close to Yale but this is pretty odd. Do they have TV sets in the yale history department, and it's unusual for perfessers NOT to be gathered around them as they make s'mores?
This comment makes no sense in relation to how academic departments actually work. Is someone being played here?
Well, yeah, Gaddis sounds like a real naif, BTW, if this is all genuine...
Gaddid, I think, had grown more critical of the war since, but that's in a large part because EVERYONE in diplomatic history, informed as we have to be on the many similar disasters of the past, can see where this is likely to go.
WELL, duh! Too bad it took so much death to look into the matter. It was a predictable disaster from the get go.
If Peak Oil is real, all of this is moot, anyways.
Gaddis may be critical on the technicalities but he accepts the premise of Empire. It doesn't surprise me that Georgie Boy would chose to accept a little critism in this instance, it suits his purposes.
Read Gaddis's piece until the end...The guy is drinking some funky kool aid...I take this with a grain of salt...
-
OT, but....
from Raw Story, a Reaganite speaks of impeachment.
matthew
Stunning!
And, btw, not off topic
I don't believe that story for a minute. Bush doesn't read.
-
Very pedantic point, even for me:
It's THE Pet Goat, not MY Pet Goat
The WH P.R. machine is nonstop. I suppose we'd all be flattered to be consulted by the President, and once you've joined those ranks it must be very difficult to maintain one's objectivity. At least that's the lesson I take away from Gaddis's speech.
What Al Dole said. The idea that this guy went in as a critic is not borne out by the evidence.
Speaking again of WMD's- shouldn't the intelligence communities have used more than one source for their "intelligence" - curveball - you know, like how the MSM is supposed to now use more than one source. If professors like this are the ones to actually write the upcoming history books, than dear leader may be made out to be "supposedly fucking brilliant". Sheesh. Methinks the professor inhaled too many kool-aid fumes, if he didn't actually drink any. You have to wonder if Bush is not impeached, how many of the current horror stories coming from Gitmo, Afghanistan, and Iraq won't be mentioned later.
Male civilians of a certain age are routinely impressed by baseball players and generals. So to be glad-handed by a former club owner in front of a room crawling with gold braid...well, little Johnny must have been THRILLED!
I think John Lewis Gaddis is one of the most famous Cold War historians there is. His "We Now Know," examining Soviet documents made available after the Cold War ended, is from what I remember, a very good book.
So fucking what if Bush read Gaddis' book or not?
Really. What could it possibly matter at this point? They have done far too much damage to this country and to the world, and it doesn't look as though they intend to stop any time soon.
What QuinnLaBelle said
I too take this neat little packaged story with a fucking grain of salt. I won't believe it till I see it written up in Newsweek Oh wait a minute . . .
4.5 billion citizens of the REST of the World can't be wrong: Bush has fucked it up good.
They could be, but they're NOT. Bu$h has shamed the US the world over, He and his minions dare to call US anti-American. Hell, he single handedly screwed our national reputation and I'll have no part in helping that idiot bastard along. Fuck him.
Is "chocolate freedom tart" W's new nickname for Condi?
wtfwjd?
Yes.
By the way, the purification rituals necessitated by my computer's exposure to a libertarian website will no doubt consume much of the night...and I am not amused.
There's one born every minute. Hey, turk, you want some of this snake oil I got? Does flattery work on you, too?
I mean, really...
Well, yeah, Gaddis sounds like a real naif, BTW, if this is all genuine...
Thersites
Thersites--this is what I keep thinking. If this is the speech Gaddis gave, it's lame. If Gaddis is this lame, who the hell did he get to the faculty of Yale? And what, everybody on the Yale faculty is too stupid to turn on a TV set? Or hanging out in faculty offices in January?
This speech doesn't even pass the smell test, the more I sniff it. I've read speeches by professors. Some of the best books published started as lectures. According to the college website, this is supposed to be a lecture on "The Past and Future of American Grand Strategy.” Instead, we get "Professor Gaddis Goes to Washington."
If this was his lecture, it's an embarassment to the faculty of Yale.
I'm about ready to call "bullshit."
And why isn't Bush in the dock? Enquiring minds want to know.
If he wasn't the President, I couldn't fault him for it.
Rmj, Wandering Aengus
well...foolish consistency being the hobgoblin of "little" minds - I guess, in this case, you're right.
Just because Bush is following in the philosphical footsteps of his grandfather Prescott, and ghw, doesn't particularly mean he is smart. In fact if they subscribe to this crap it shows they aren't smart, just that some of them are greedy for power.
He learned this from his family. That's who they are.
Look at the history
Bismarck was the brains, for sure, and the Kaisers were inbred dunces. Especially the second.
"It is fair to say, I believe, that the administration never wanted to undertake preemption in Iraq unilaterally"
who is this stooge...nothing could be further from reality.
Some tidbits from Reuters:
The US official overseeing rebuilding of Iraq says "its still too early" to predict when Iraqis will enjoy adequate electricity and other essential services.
"Relentless" (!?!) guerilla attacks have killed 295 contractors for US projects alone (whatthehell? aren't they all *Iraqi* projects?)
We want to take a huge turbine and 400 tonnes of equipment to Kirkuk, but we can't run the risk as the guerillas can strike anywhere, let alone a slow desert road. "Now we are planning to get it there by September"-- so those folks are going to cook one more summer at least.
yeah, I'll bet ol' Otto would have been surprised by all this too...
fuckit- I'm going in search of overpriced adult beverages & noisy smoke-filled rooms .
For what it's worth, a variant on this story was first reported by the Washington Times in March '04
http://www.washtimes.com/culture...02850-
4087r.htm
The professor was also a Hoover Fellow among other associations. His main book up to the latest was on The Cold War.
From the Wash Times article -
Although Mr. Gaddis faults the president for not gathering sufficient international support before the invasion of Iraq and underestimating the challenges of postwar Iraq, the professor supported Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Many other academics opposed the war, making them reluctant to credit the president for a change in U.S. foreign policy that could very well endure for the next half-century, Mr. Gaddis said.
"The academic world is of course predominantly liberal, predominately Democratic, so there is a predisposition to be less critical of a Democratic administration than there is a Republican administration," he said.
Mr. Gaddis, who described himself as a "very long-term, disillusioned Democrat who still has hope for the Democratic Party," disputed the liberal stereotype of the president as a lightweight.
"There certainly has been a tendency to underestimate Bush himself and to view him in the way that Reagan was viewed when he first came in — as being a cipher, manipulated by his own advisers," he added. "That turned out not to be true of Reagan, and it's turning out not to be true of Bush as well."
Make of it what you will. I'm not yet sure whether Gaddis is creating propaganda or his quotes are being manipulated for that purpose. From the quick reading of his writing I could do on a web surf he does seem to be a contrarian by nature.
Gaddis said:
"One is that no weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq. But every intelligence agency in the world also believed that they were there, and it may be that Saddam Hussein believed that also. That they weren’t, was universally unexpected."
Really? Did he ask Hans Blix this? Or Scott Ritter? Or anybody else from the original UNSCOM team in the late 1990s?
Every intelligence agency in the world? Puhleeze.
Listen people, I am not sure of the upshot of this: but if George W Bush read Ullyses and annotated his own copy and interpretation: It would not make him less than a banal warmongering criminal. Forget it! Keep your eye on the prize, the utter destruction of the Republican's lying and usurptation of our country.
If this was his lecture, it's an embarassment to the faculty of Yale.
I'm about ready to call "bullshit."
Yup. That stuff about the TV and the inauguration is just weird.
Either he's a putz or this is BS.
Gaddis is only tangentally correct in his analysis of previous administrations' use of "pre-emption". They enunciated foreign policy goals, but to claim that simply enunciating them constitutes "pre-emption" (which is essentially what Gaddis claims) is just so much horseshit. There's a huge difference between saying "we won't tolerate European influence in Middle America" and pre-emptively attacking Europe.
Beyond that, Gaddis is being blatantly disingenious when he flippantly observes that we could have just "cut a deal" with Saddam for the oil. We did, via Bay Oil and others. That wasn't good enough, however, because someone else still ultimately controlled the spigot. Not only that, but with Saddam in power, the US couldn't privatize everything in Iraq for the benefit of its corporate cronies, which has now been done. Concessions that used to belong to the Iraqi state now belongs to US corporations. The war further provided excuse and cover for shoveling huge sums of taxpayer dollars to Bush corporate cronies, with little or no oversight and no apparent concern over widespread fraud and theft.
In short, these obvious attempts to deny reality on the part of Gaddis make his entire argument suspect.
I vote for "he's a tool".
I think John Lewis Gaddis is one of the most famous Cold War historians there is. His "We Now Know," examining Soviet documents made available after the Cold War ended, is from what I remember, a very good book.
Dave - 10:36 pm
"We Now Know" is an excellent overview of the Cold War. But that's all. Personally, I didn't think it was anything special. Well, that is, none of it was news to anyone who'd been paying attention, damnit during the last sixty years or so.
Come on, people. when someone like me can read a work of history and say, "None of this is news," then none of it is news, goddamnnit!
I need a drink. where's that vodka go?
, I am not sure of the upshot of this: but if George W Bush read Ullyses and annotated his own copy and interpretation: It would not make him less than a banal warmongering criminal.
Would have ruined a perfectly good copy of Ulysses, though.
GW Bush Hearts Uzbekistan.
So much for taking time to ponder whether Bush believes any of that anti-tyrant shit he spewed on inaugeration day.
I think the Yale Perfessor is a little too smitten with being invited to the White House and getting to call Sec. Rice "Condi."
And by the way, why do all the men call the little girl by her first name?
Would have ruined a perfectly good copy of Ulysses, though.
Thersites
There's no such thing.
(now, admit it! You knew I was here! That was a straight line I couldn't refuse!)
So how did Germany make out post-Bismark?
Heh heh heh... how indeed. But who is going defeat Bush like Der Kaiser and Hitler were defeated?
This kinda fits in with the "stabilization" phase Chimpy thinks we're heading into. It's the blub for a link at icasualties.org.
05/21/05 The Scotsman: Secret UK troops plan for Afghan crisis
DEFENCE chiefs are planning to rush thousands of British troops to Afghanistan in a bid to stop the country sliding towards civil war ... Ministers have been warned they face a "complete strategic failure" of the effort to rebuild Afghanistan ...
I think Johnny said it best earlier in the thread: How'd Germany do after Bismarck?
RMJ, I assume you're considering my offer....
Rmj - I've been considering trying to delve into Joyce, thinking that by now maybe I'm up to the challenge. Or perhaps I'm just feeling masochistic.
I take it that your view would be the latter?
You guys are depressing me.
I'm going back to the drilldo thread.
RMJ, I assume you're considering my offer....
NYMary
But I didn't think you wanted Thersites...
oh! That offer!
Sorry.
Would have ruined a perfectly good copy of Ulysses, though.
Thersites
There's no such thing.
Probably not.
Want details...?
Jennifer, Don't listen to RMJ, he likes TS freaking Eliot. Joyce is the real thing, trust me & Thers.
I'm not impressed. Bush reads. Wow. As said above, the key to Bush is clearly Bismarck. Not reassuring.
I'm guessing, if anything, Bush is read to. I'm also not impressed. He is an asshole who has sold out the country to radical freaks and pseudo geeks who sit in wingnutteryville dreaming up destructive policy. He is eager to go along with the latest con job to screw most of America if it means more pocket change for the wealthiest of the wealthy. Have I said I detest him? I do.
Hey, remember how Chimpy promised that we were going to re-build Afghanistan, and then completely "forgot" to request any funding to do it in the next budget?
I wonder if Gaddis remembered that when deciding that Bush tells the truth.
Just like a bunch of blind bloggers feeling an elephant, taking away so many different impressions. Some mostly, irrelevant, in my world anyway.
that chocolate freedom tart must have been damn good. i know i can be bought with an excellent dessert.
one thing i'm having a problem with though - why are we investing in the "work of generations" when the rapture is around the corner?
Rmj - I've been considering trying to delve into Joyce, thinking that by now maybe I'm up to the challenge. Or perhaps I'm just feeling masochistic.
I take it that your view would be the latter?
Jennifer
It's a running joke between Thersites and I.
Just don't tell him I picked up my copy of Finnegans Wake last week and decided to transfer it to my summer reading list, along with a new (and better, I hope) copy of Ulysses than the one I bought years ago when they tried to "revise" it, and did what I heard was a horrible job (I just know the copy I have is darned hard to read, and the old Vintage copy I used to have at least had legible print).
Guys - Gaddis got his PhD from Texas in 1968 - he knows people in this administration - it's a plant - got to be - too damned naive. Plus - if you read the link in my homepage - he got slammed back in 2002 for being PRO pre-emption.
He's a plant and I call bullshit.
And don't kid yourselves. Some of the biggest Bush lickers out there are Ivy League prefessers... Nicholas Lemann, anyone?
This country is so finished. Humans are so finished. Go critters, from possums to bacteria. Good luck to y'all, we blew it.
Can't even ponder this shit anymore. We're done. So beyond parody.
Jennifer, Don't listen to RMJ, he likes TS freaking Eliot. Joyce is the real thing, trust me & Thers.
NYMary
So that's the way it is, eh?
Trying to get me to come to Eschacon just to straighten you out, eh?
Crafty, these Irish girls.....
Of course, the supreme irony of this entire discussion is that we live in an era where it seems quite plausible that the president doesn't read.
Gaddis believes that not only does Bush read, but that this is laudable. Myself, I tend to think of it as setting the bar way, way too low.
This comment makes no sense in relation to how academic departments actually work. Is someone being played here?
Well, yeah, Gaddis sounds like a real naif, BTW, if this is all genuine...
Thersites | Email | Homepage | 05.21.05 - 10:28 pm | #
Maybe. Maybe not. Gaddis is someone who has been waited on just about all his life long. It is quite possible that he's so technologically unaware that he can't figure out how to access the presnit's speech without some poor grad student holding his hand.
yeah, I've worked for people like that. Plenty of 'em in academia nd elsewhere.
It isn't about the speech. Bush wants them to read the book. And it is not a pretty picture. Here's the review from Publisher's Weekly:
"The post–September 11 strategy of the Bush administration is often described as a radical departure from U.S. policy. Gaddis, one of America's leading scholars of foreign policy and international relations, provocatively demonstrates that, to the contrary, the principles of preemption, unilateralism and hegemony go back to the earliest days of the republic. Gaddis resurrects the 18th-century idea of an "empire of liberty": whether as a universal principle or in an American context, liberty could flourish only in an empire that provided safety. The British burning of Washington in 1814 highlighted American vulnerability to certain forms of surprise attack. In consequence, Gaddis recounts, John Quincy Adams developed a strategy of seeking control over the North American continent with minimal coercion, but through preemptive action where necessary. The attack on Pearl Harbor extended the concept to global dimensions, eventually expanding the U.S. sphere of influence exponentially. The events of September 11 extended the concept of preemptive action even at the expense of sovereignty when terrorism is involved. Gaddis describes this latest expansion of American power in response to surprise attack as a volatile mixture of prudence and arrogance. But instead of the usual caveats, he recommends the U.S. continue on an interventionist course, and he has no qualms about calling America the best hope of liberty in the eyes of most of the earth's inhabitants. The ability to question all values that is liberty's essence depends, he finds, on defending certain values—unilaterally and preemptively when necessary, but not randomly. This compact, provocative history of an idea-in-action has the potential to alter the U.S.'s collective self-image."
As to the motivation of this "liberal academic professor" advising the rPresident: I like Randi Rhodes explanation of telling the truth, "Telling the truth doesn't take long to do, creating a smokescreen for BS does." - or something like that. Was that article long ass, or what? Once again, taking that long to explain a situation doesn't sound like the truth. As to "Occams Razor" - as applied to GWB: "I care for the safety and well being of all corporations, and campaign donors- if you are too poor or intelligent to see my vision FOAD." IMHO.
Probably not.
Want details...?
Thersites
O lord, it's worse than Biblical scholarship!
I put down my textual criticism and bibliographic tools a long time ago. They're all rusty now, and I don't have the strength to even find 'em, much less clean 'em up....
Fellow at the Hoover Institute, Ph.D. from the U. of Texas at Austin. I smell a Turdblossom in the craphouse. First planted by the Washington Times back in March.
http://www.washtimes.com/culture...02850-
4087r.htm
RMJ,
Unless you're a Joycean, skip the Gabler edition of Ulysses; the Vintage is fine, and more readable.
"The purpose of writing is to present as much information in as clear a manner as possible. Words are important: do not waste them. Remember, as a writer you have to respect your reader and both entertain and inform them."
Who said that?
oops, I did. (Sorry English Professor types, Finnegan and Ullyses hold little interest for me - turning in my card to the intellectual's society now. . . . )
Jennifer, Don't listen to RMJ, he likes TS freaking Eliot. Joyce is the real thing, trust me & Thers.
NYMary
I resemble that remark! I am a fan of T.S. Eliot and you aren't the boss of me. Heh heh.
But I didn't think you wanted Thersites...
Oh, crap, I thought he was on the other thread!
(I keed! I keed!)
DWD- Is that "Elements Of Style" by Strunk?
Oh, never mind...
Still watching Descent, and it is supergodawful.
I had the Vintage once upon a long time ago, and foolishly discarded it, IIRC, for the "new and improved" edition. Which wasn't. By any stretch.
Used to know all the reasons; lost in the fog of graduate school at UT, long ago. I'll order another copy of the Vintage edition, thanks for the advice.
Sorry BLak1, it was simply me trying to pull on the aesthetically pleasing robes of our resident English professors.
Still watching Descent, and it is supergodawful.
Eli
"That's solid rock ahead!"
Does it get better after that? Or worse?
Hard to imagine, but then, it is about digging a hole.....
Jennifer--
RMJ & I are just messing. Eliot & Joyce, and most of the modernists (even Pound, who edges close to wankerdom, and that's one of his GOOD qualities), enable categories of thought which I find indispensible. He probably does too.
Of course, RMJ wrote, "between Thersites and I," and someone so careless with case may seem... well, a step removed from someone who would sell their grandpa's catheter for a "heroin binge." While I am sympathetic to this point of view, I assure you, in many ways he is a wonderful person and an astute critic.
But if it any consolation: my resident bookshelf on the left hand, in easy reach, does contain Strunk and White's book as well as my old AP Style book.
That's okay. I should actually read an entire post before answering it anyway.
05/21/05 The Scotsman: Secret UK troops plan for Afghan crisis
DEFENCE chiefs are planning to rush thousands of British troops to Afghanistan in a bid to stop the country sliding towards civil war ... Ministers have been warned they face a "complete strategic failure" of the effort to rebuild Afghanistan ...
Maybe they can also get the NYT in their crosshairs for running the Taxidriver Story.
Bismarcks strongest card was the Ministry of Propaganda and a guy named Busch worked their for a while. Coincidence? Maybe
Of course, RMJ wrote, "between Thersites and I," and someone so careless with case may seem... well, a step removed from someone who would sell their grandpa's catheter for a "heroin binge." While I am sympathetic to this point of view, I assure you, in many ways he is a wonderful person and an astute critic.
I am a devout Chomskyite in all matters grammatical.
I.e., prescriptive grammars are for anal retentives and Samuel Johnson-esgue types who end up worrying about losing their reason.
Heh.
"That's solid rock ahead!"
Does it get better after that? Or worse?
The ending is unbelievably bad, where the middle-aged government lady starts platituding at the TV reporter who materializes out of nowhere, and Luke Perry stops peddling the lifeboat with Science Babe, saying, "I don't need to get to shore. I've got everything I need right here."
Rove must have pulled some strings on the Washington Post leadership: the story of their lying as a means to war has been replaced by a positive article about the Sunnis helping to draft a new constitution in Iraq. Wankers and liars all of them!
Mr. Gaddis, who described himself as a "very long-term, disillusioned Democrat who still has hope for the Democratic Party," disputed the liberal stereotype of the president as a lightweight.
OK, so he's another "lifelong Democrat" who's disgusted with all the current Democrats.
Bet he also write a lot of LTTE's.
That's okay. I should actually read an entire post before answering it anyway.
BlakNo1
That's not always possible, love. Jump in at will.
Luke Perry stops peddling the lifeboat with Science Babe, saying, "I don't need to get to shore. I've got everything I need right here."
And she's looking at him and thinking: "Wow! You really do think you're all that!"
And tosses him overboard, because he's just dead weight.
Or at least, that would be a reasonable ending. But then, that's solid rock ahead, so who could expect anything reasonable?
Thanks for spreading propaganda. Bush lies about reading a book, makes a fucking speech and flatters an academic and everything changes.
And this book was not about the liberal media or how wonderful George Bush's policies are - far from it.
Ms. Carol, tear down this post. You been had.
That's not always possible, love. Jump in at will.
bigvic
Got my boots on. Which one's Will?
He's a plant and I call bullshit.
myrna minkoff
There's something really weird about this story. Things just don't add up.
The same guy who is supposedly full of intellectual curiosity about Bismarck and wants to learn more about a Yale prof's book was the Forest Gump dude "riding his bike in Maryland" last week and completely unaware that DC was being evacuated.
There are just too many things that don't pass the smell test.
There were some sentences in there that were absolutely true. Most was bullshit.
Everybody thought they had WMD, don't you know that?
Prewar Findings Worried Analysts (via the WP)
Prewar Findings Worried Analysts
By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, May 22, 2005; Page A26
On Jan. 24, 2003, four days before President Bush delivered his State of the Union address presenting the case for war against Iraq, the National Security Council staff put out a call for new intelligence to bolster claims that Saddam Hussein possessed nuclear, chemical and biological weapons or programs.
The person receiving the request, Robert Walpole, then the national intelligence officer for strategic and nuclear programs, would later tell investigators that "the NSC believed the nuclear case was weak," according to a 500-page report released last year by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.
RMJ,
At this point, I've got my waders on. Must go off to sleep. Wank away, good fellows. Peace.
India, I think will/has replaced us as superpower. Maybe they will save us?
Just read the love letter to Santorum in the Sunday NYT magazine.
Beyond revolting.
I am a devout Chomskyite in all matters grammatical.
Quoting Gilbert & Sullivan?
Low, Robert... low.
What is the point if the story does or does not pass the smell test. What does it change? Anything. Bush shows one moment of curiosity? Whoopeedo. It either confirms that he is not working with the world and instead is replacing it with rampant idealistic fervor or someone said read this, this is why and let's call the prof and ask some questions.
Haven't you ever seen the exec that reads all the trade and management mags and becomes an immediate expert, then begins pushing this book or that such as "The Goal"?
Just read the love letter to Santorum in the Sunday NYT magazine.
Beyond revolting.
Ick. I wouldn't mind a profile on Santorum, if it was, you know, remotely accurate...
I am a devout Chomskyite in all matters grammatical.
Quoting Gilbert & Sullivan?
Low, Robert... low.
Thersites
Well, I am the very model of a modern major general.
Or is that foolium and falium?
I get 'em confused?
India, I think will/has replaced us as superpower. Maybe they will save us?
magnolia
Only if they figure they need us. I'm not all that optimistic.
Ahhh - I love the smell of desperation in the morning! These people are so pathetic they are trying to make us believe (i.e. "care") that Bush reads. And commands others to read as well!
You know - I'm watching "Fiddler on the Roof" right now - and Tevya has to come to grips with how his world is changing and things don't always go his way. He doesn't resort to planting "feel good" stories about his intellectual capacity or emotional sensitivities in the local jewish paper.
India, I think will/has replaced us as superpower. Maybe they will save us?
I doubt it. It's not like they could explain what was wrong with my Service Pack 2 download.
(Rimshot. Sad, sad, unemotional rimshot.)
Thanks for spreading propaganda. Bush lies about reading a book, makes a fucking speech and flatters an academic and everything changes.
z | Email | Homepage | 05.21.05 - 11:13 pm |
Really!!??
Well, I am the very model of a modern major general.
Or is that foolium and falium?
I get 'em confused?
I am pleased to hear it. I do not approve of anything that tampers with natural ignorance. Ignorance is like a delicate exotic fruit; touch it and the bloom is gone.
I doubt it. It's not like they could explain what was wrong with my Service Pack 2 download.
Why, nothing at all, of course.
It is your ocmputer that is the problem....
This message brought to you by Microsquish.
"Haven't you ever seen the exec that reads all the trade and management mags and becomes an immediate expert, then begins pushing this book or that such as "The Goal"?"
Yes...Yes I have. It bothers me that I once had to lie to MY boss and tell him I had indeed read "Who Moved My Cheese?" and was indeed giving it some thought. I started sending out resumes that week.
Typos and punctuation errors rising rapidly.
A sure sign it's time for bed.
Where is that Tom Lehrer album....?
There are so many 'errors', misstatements and Faux News talking points in his reasoning it throws any conclusion he may have right out the window for any consideration.
I have it, RMJ. As many as I could find. If you need something, let me know.
Just read the love letter to Santorum in the Sunday NYT magazine.
Why?
"Tell me about Bismark."
Imagine the disappointment when the boy king found out that they weren't talking about a big boat go boom boom.
RMJ, you may have to explain who Tom Lehrer is though . . .at least to the children.
Actually one thing I get from this story is that Gaddis was overawed by talking to Bush, so couldn't critically judge whether Bush had actually read his book.
Ah, Tom Lehrer. What a hoot!
Santorum gets beat in '06.
No doubt.
DWD--
Off to waste an evening and poison pigeons in the park, as well as sing out a "Te Deum" when I see that ICBM...
...'cause we'll all go together when we go!
Thank goodness I got another turntable a few years ago.....
"Life is like a sewer. What you get out of it depends on what you put into it."
Totally OT.
The 10 minute Batman Begins preview from Smallville here.
You must have divx to enjoy this.
Just read the love letter to Santorum in the Sunday NYT magazine.
Beyond revolting.
Ick. I wouldn't mind a profile on Santorum, if it was, you know, remotely accurate...
I could not agree more. Sick, sick, sick man. OK. Really going to bed now. Night, moonbats.
Eli--
I hope that was from the movie you just saw.....
You know it just occurred to me, they probably just copied the part about Bismarck and gave it to Dub. There's no way he read a whole book, especially if it was critical of him, he can't stand that.
Imagine the chimpster telling rummy to do something.
Is professor dimwit really that stupid or does he think you are?
nite bigvic
Drunkee
Then you recognize this president is operating like any upper exec that no longer does anything other than shake hands and signs the paperwork.
Then he dabbles. I am beginning to think the Social Security Farewell tour is simply a way to get him out of the office so the minions can continue taking over the world without him messing it up. Unfortunately, they are just as bad as he is.
Damn if I am going to live under a totalitarian empire it could at least be a competent one.
I hope that was from the movie you just saw.....
It was part of Lehrer's intro to "We Will All Go Together When We Go"...
Wisdom from his friend Hen3ry, right before they took him away to the Massachusetts State Home For The Terminally Bewildered...
"President reads book - world awaits result" - headline of a Joe Conason piece a few years ago ..
Tom Lehrer - So Long Mom, I'm Off to Drop the Bomb
Tom Lehrer - The Irish Ballad
Tom Lehrer - The Vatican Rag
Tom Lehrer - We Will All Go Together
Tom Lehrer In Old Mexico
Tom Lehrer- Subway Song, The
Tom Lehrer- The Old Dope Peddler
Tom Lehrer Who's Next
Tom Lehrer - Clementine
Tom Lehrer - I Hold Your Hand In Mine
Tom Lehrer - Masochism Tango
Tom Lehrer - My Home Town
Tom Lehrer - National Brotherhood Week
Tom Lehrer - Oedipus Rex
Tom Lehrer - Plagiarize
Tom Lehrer - Poisoning Pigeons in the Park
Tom Lehrer - Pollution
Tom Lehrer - Send The Marines
You know it just occurred to me, they probably just copied the part about Bismarck and gave it to Dub. There's no way he read a whole book, especially if it was critical of him, he can't stand that.
grytpype
That's the impression I got because he listed all the negative things he had written about Bush.
Awesome! Will Forte as Zell Miller on SNL! One of my favorite things!
Btw: wonder what the opening hours of the 'George W. Bush library' are going to be - who drew the cartoon about the 'Ronald Reagan library' only being open on Friday afternoons for half an hour or so because you only find the books which Reagan actually DID READ?
("Zell Miller: Crazy Person")
How many trolls just visited?
"I am beginning to think the Social Security Farewell tour is simply a way to get him out of the office so the minions can continue taking over the world without him messing it up."
When they start having him become more involved in developing the White House's website, then the Useless Executive metaphor will be complete. And we all will be truly finally completely screwed.
How do you take a propaganda ministry down? Learn their language.
Well, Moonbats, time to go and relive my dream once more. The one where my book is published about the control of information in our society. It becomes an instant best-seller and I am ovenight senstion after eighteen years. Riches and wanton women (well, woman anway) Intenation recogniton as the man who lifted the scales from the eyes of America. (prolly not)
Awesome! Will Forte as Zell Miller on SNL! One of my favorite things!
Eli | Email | Homepage | 05.21.05 - 11:41 pm | #
His performance is quite amusing.
Heya Freethinking Moonbats
That was quite Preakness race, wasn't it? I don't think I should try and bet on the races, though. The horses I picked as choices (on my blog) didn't do so well. I notice that CultureGhost didn't do well with his picks, either 
Condi Rice on SNL....
Everyone agrees everything was going great in Iraq until the media got involved.
The Freedom of the Press is one of the founding ideals of the country, don't make us take it away.
His performance is quite amusing.
I love how he turns vein-pulsing beet red without any artificial assistance...
G'nite DWD
Sweet! Woomba commercial on SNL!
Damn if I am going to live under a totalitarian empire it could at least be a competent one.
EkCenTriK | Email | Homepage | 05.21.05 - 11:37 pm | #
Amen, brother!
And corpuscle, John Gaddis' stuff must sound like music to the neocon ears to me as well! Thanks for the link!
EkCenTrik--overall, I don't think totalitarian empires have a record of competence. But I'm not a historian.
The trains running on time does not count.
Eli - I'm laughing out loud - alone - about the woomba!
Too funny.
Woomba
With Windows CE Embedded.
Still OT - but, I posted a link to Thersites Metacomments about the cows on my blog. Did anyone see it and go visit that particular jewel?
With Windows CE Embedded.
I thought it was Vaginux.
Sallyh
Ok, I am willing to negotiate. A sane bus schedule?
Come on, even Stalin could have pulled that off. What is so hard about? Mr. Bus Driver, if you do not make your stops on time, you will never see your family again. What is so damn hard about that?
ELI!!!
Vaginux???
(smacks Eli)
I thought it was Vaginux.
Eli"
I guess an open source product would make more sense.
EkCenTrik--I think I'd best start carrying out the hot blueberry pie.
I guess an open source product would make more sense.
Yes. Open... source.
Sallyh - I love blueberry pie! Do we get ice cream, too?
Sallyh - I love blueberry pie! Do we get ice cream, too?
Mmm...
Eli
Shall we just stop at that line of thought.
"The Bush administration, however – like Reagan’s, Roosevelt’s, Wilson’s Lincoln’s – understands that words carry weight. It is choosing them carefully. It is applying them strategically. And to the surprise of its critics, is getting results. It would be a mistake, then, not to listen."
I wonder if they served Gaddis the Kool-Aid before the meeting or after...
OWL--we get blueberry pie a la mode. Monsieur requested, so he's who your thanks have to go to.
Shall we just stop at that line of thought.
"That's what *she* said."
George W Bush's "intelligence"/intellect is in the exclusive service of predatory cunning and manifests itself most brilliantly in manipulation.
The Gaddis thing rbeminds me of an old SNL skit that shows the guy who used to do Raygun so well (committed suicide? Can't recall his name, to my shame). Anyway, it depicted Raygun as his usual genial idiot inpublic, then, the second the door closed and he was in private w/his staff, he clicked into an intelligent, decisive President. Funny at the time. I just don't happen to believe GWB has the same ability. Of course, neither did Raygun.....
Spring 2000
John Lewis Gaddis has been appointed a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution.
http://www-hoover.stanford.edu/p...ing/
gaddis.html
Vice President Dick Cheney, Feburary 2003 Hoover Overseers Meeting:
"I do think we are off to a good start, and it is important that we have the support and enthusiastic involvement of organizations like the Hoover Institution..."
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, February 2003, Hoover Overseers Meeting:
"I'm delighted to be able to be here. I just came out of a meeting with the president with Mitch Daniels, who I understand is going to be here soon. And I saw Karl Rove over there, who I guess is going to be one of your panelists or something later today. They're all friends of Hoover and recognize that this institution is surely one of the -- America's great centers of learning."
http://www.pfaw.org/pfaw/general....aspx?
oid=11948
Somebody was punked.
"Of course, the supreme irony of this entire discussion is that we live in an era where it seems quite plausible that the president doesn't read.
Gaddis believes that not only does Bush read, but that this is laudable. Myself, I tend to think of it as setting the bar way, way too low."
From the beginning, his own administration has done everything it could to play down any hint of intellectualism on the part of the chimp. In other words, if we knew he was the egghead Gaddis wants us to believe he is, we wouldn't vote for him. Uh, that makes sense.
And he further states that their whole FP is a 'radical' notion, but then goes on to make it sound like it's grounded in fp that goes back 200 years of our history. Well, ok.
But his biggest load of bullshit is that the chimp has synthesized national interest with idealism, idealism defined as freedom from tyrany. Using that rationale as a pretense for invading Iraq is fine and good. You can make that case, but you sure as hell can't sell it in the USA. Further, if the whole FP revolves around this notion, then we needs lots on invasions...some on our WOT 'allies'.
Of course, contradictions abound and Gaddis dismisses those out of hand as present in any administration. But that sleight of hand betrays his willingness to not only swallow bullshi, but declare it tastes good.
For a long time in the leadup to the war I argued chimpco's policy was anything but conservative, in fact I believed it was Liberal. But I also applied the Clinton test to it: that is to say, what would the public, the press, the intellectual community and his political opponents on the GOP side say if BC(or any dem) had proposed and attempted to do(and resultant mess that was made) in Iraq?
I think that answer is pretty fucking obvious. So excuse me if I don't swallow the cool-aid.
Speaking of the New York Times: with typical courage, Okrent waits until his final column to slime Krugman.
Eli, EkCenTrik--should the ladies at Eschacon be wary of the men at the Lonely Geek Guys Table?
The Gaddis thing rbeminds me of an old SNL skit that shows the guy who used to do Raygun so well (committed suicide? Can't recall his name, to my shame). Anyway, it depicted Raygun as his usual genial idiot inpublic, then, the second the door closed and he was in private w/his staff, he clicked into an intelligent, decisive President. Funny at the time. I just don't happen to believe GWB has the same ability. Of course, neither did Raygun.....
That was great. I think it was Piscopo - you might be thinking of Phil Hartman.
"Tell me about Bismark."
Isn't that a pastry?
Eli, EkCenTrik--should the ladies at Eschacon be wary of the men at the Lonely Geek Guys Table?
Oh, like you wouldn't be anyway.
Eli - I don't think you're using that right!
That's what *she* said!
I'll read the love letter to Santorum in the NYT right now, David Ehrenstein!
While we are on the subject of the 'paper of record', except for Herbert, Krugman and Rich, the whole NYT seems to consist of love letters to the Repubs - think Robin Toner (who had an incredibly condescending piece about the nuclear option in yesterday's paper where he essentially blamed the Dems for this option now being used by the Repubs), Stephenson, Miller, Nagourney, Wilgoren, etc. - and that is for starters!
"Oh, like you wouldn't be anyway."
Actually, it's where smart women go to meet guys...we're just a bit...concerned...
Oh, and before I forget:
Hi Kent! Hope you are A-ok in Indiana and Chiquita and her puppies are thriving ..
Okay - better.
(reposted from my comment at "Ten O'Clock Scholar's" site. The main blog page does list the correct number of comments below the article, but only links to the screwed-up article page, which falsely claims there are "0 COMMENTS". You will need to click on "POST A COMMENT" (you don't need to do so) to find the comments.)
"I look forward to a President (Democratic or Republican) who operates on the belief that you don't overthrow tyranny by supporting dictators. You don't support democracy (or republics) by overthrowing popularly (and transparently) elected leaders."
Hozee, Okrent has slimed Krugman? Link please! 
Eli, yes, Hartman.
Anyway, trying to sell W at this point as a reading intellectual idealist is too far for me to stretch. I'm really surprised it would be attempted.
Yeah, right, like that motherfucker is into democracy in any form. Fuck me a'runnin'.......
Noting that I exited the Lonely Geek Guys Union years ago, most likely. I make reference to "Revenge of the Nerds" and why the nerds were ah... more proficient.
If Gaddis wanted to convince me that Bush is a good President, He shouldn't have left out what Questions W. Asked for that 20 minutes.
That's what *she* said!
"It would be irresponsible, I think, to have such great power, and not to try to use it in this way."
We have bombs, it would be irresponsible not to drop them on some poor bastard.
SNL's Smigel cartoon is about Divertor, the superhero the Bush administration uses to create distractions every time there's bad news.
We have bombs, it would be irresponsible not to drop them on some poor bastard.
Falstaff
yeah, waaayyy more than we need, so we should share. It's the Right thing to do.
Divertor - we need your help!
Yale? Texas Ph.D.? Hoover Institute? Did you really expect this guy to speak against Bush? Did you really expect that? Really and truly ?
SNL Funhouse video was damn good! Divertor... gotta remember that name
Monsieur is torturing me. He'd rather watch 'Spanglish' than let me bag on Luke Perry. All this and I baked pie for him.
SNL's Smigel cartoon is about Divertor
...Did they just pre-emptively attack Newsweek to distract people because they knew Murdoch was going to publish the pics of Saddam?
Monsieur is torturing me. He'd rather watch 'Spanglish' than let me bag on Luke Perry. All this and I baked pie for him.
Monsieur *is* a guy, right???
BTW, next week on Sci-Fi: Dinocroc!
Oh God - Condoleeza Rice was speaking about how she is concerned about human rights everywhere - heard 2 minutes ago on Australian radio. OT but still ..
I think I popped my cooter bone out. HAHAHAHAH - One of my co-workers calls it that.
What amazes me about the comments here, is that to hold the opinion that anyone who has reached the apex of a cut-throat field like politics, is an idiot -- well, that to me, speaks of the idiocy of the people who hold that opinion.
"Monsieur *is* a guy, right???"
Monsieur is most assuredly male.
alabama, well, yeah. We're SO fucking forgetful.
It's not that we expect people to speak against Bush, but we are floored that some would speak FOR him.
Of course, timing is everything. This is probably the most tightly orchestrated Preznitcy in history.
First of all, Bush did not read the book. Someone in Rove's office read a review, briefed Rove about it and this little PR plot was hatched.
Second, Bismarck's imperialism mostly (except for a piece of Africa) involved consolidating neighboring German-speaking mini-states into Prussia. It did not involve a long-term, bloody, cross-cultural adventure on the other side of the world.
Third, Gaddis was clearly little-boy-awed by his White House invite. "Chocolate freedom tart," indeed.
Fourth, Gaddis still believes the Plan B WMD lie, even now!
Fifth, what's with Middlebury? They had Rudy the 9/11 profiteer Giuliani as their commencement speaker this year. Moneybags Bushite alumni calling the tune?
Sixth, the "new" Ulysses is a lousy, mistake-filled copyright fraud. Real Ulysses are available at most decent used bookstores.
Did you say 'Dinocroc'???
Eli, Flory tells me that next weekend, we get 40 hours of creature features! Can you imagine the bliss, the fun, the liveblogging?
Monsieur is most assuredly male.
I have trouble believing *anyone* would want to watch Spanglish, much less a guy.
And this coming from a guy with a pretty high tolerance for chick movies.
Not Sisterhood Of The Traveling Pants, though - I refuse to watch anything with a title that stupid.
Mmmmmm.. Blueberry pie ala mode..
Fantastic, Sallyh! Good eats!
Eli--he's knocked out on Relafen and Soma. This may have something to do with it. But of the two of us, he's more likely to watch chick flicks than I am.
Monsieur was a metrosexual before it became fashionable.
"What amazes me about the comments here, is that to hold the opinion that anyone who has reached the apex of a cut-throat field like politics, is an idiot -- well, that to me, speaks of the idiocy of the people who hold that opinion."
Wow - he talks real good - don't he!
to hold the opinion that anyone who has reached the apex of a cut-throat field like politics, is an idiot -- well, that to me, speaks of the idiocy of the people who hold that opinion.
m. d. qillard
au contraire, gillard.
The rosters of governmental "servants" (HAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAA) are filled w/names of those who are not much beyond average intelligence. Most are like car salesmen.
Precious few are exceptional.
Geirge W Bush himself has admitted that he is a media creation. He sure as shit didn't get to where he is by desire/drive/intelligence. He is very, very useful to people far more intelligent than he, though probably no more venal.
m. d. qillard
Again, I point to many upper level execs and CEO's. I have seen too many that had absolutely no credibility in their product, the disciplines required for it manufacture nor in the management of an organization. Yet they succeed far beyond the average do-er and are frequently lauded for their prowess in running an organization. Visionary status is applied and I think it ends up being which golf course is the best that seals the deal. With the history of this administration, even if not true, it is entirely believable.
if anything earns me my seat at that particular table, it's my absolute inability to even think about sitting through a "chick movie". I usually have to hope "she" likes art-house flicks.
I keep thinking of the story about Reagan's hairdresser saying that Reagan never colored his hair.
But of the two of us, he's more likely to watch chick flicks than I am.
Monsieur was a metrosexual before it became fashionable.
Sounds like me and my girlfriend.
Um, except for the metrosexual part...
Gaddis meets with Condi and Bush yet tells us nothing about the substance of their talks.
Bush supposedly asked questions...but Gaddis doesn't reveal any of them.
Did Gaddis have to take an oath of secrecy after the meeting?
And as for the theory about why this couldn't possibly be about oil.
This wasn't about only Iraq's oil...we had to pull our troops out of Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia's oil is the motherlode and why we are back in Iraq.
Gaddis is full of it.
And just ice cream for me, thanks.
Eli - I just stopped over at your blog and took a look at your cloud album. Those are AWESOME!
Bush supposedly asked questions...but Gaddis doesn't reveal any of them.
They were probably all along the lines of "What's this word mean?"...
Spanglish isn't all that bad - though the idea of Tea Leone AND Paz Vega falling in love with Adam Sandler does require HUGE "suspension of disbelief"!
Thanks, OWL!
Tea Leoni is breathtakingly irritating in this film.
Sallyh- she is up until the end - but one thing about her = she doesn't have to look "pretty" in every shot.
Helga, here's the link to Okrent:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/2...3cd9562&
ei=5070
Eli--the metrosexual part does not extend to fashion. Everything in Monsieur's side of the closet is grey, blue or black. He says he can't screw up that way.
Great find, hadenough!
jdw wrote:
And he further states that their whole FP is a 'radical' notion, but then goes on to make it sound like it's grounded in fp that goes back 200 years of our history. Well, ok.
Yes, jdw! That was among the more glaring inconsistencies in that speech.
If contradictions abound in all Presidents' speeches, then why even bother paying attention to them? Gaddis is making a Moebius strip of an argument. Actually, I'm not sure his argument is even that coherent. This is the best I can do on short notice:
*Presidents speak of having ideals, even if they don't always abide by them. But you should cling to those ideals. Bush actually is living up to his spoken ideals. Even though I've claimed that he's not always doing so.*
Throw in some woefully ignorant views of current events, and there you have it. To quote from a game at homestarrunner.com, "My head a splode."
By the way:
john.gaddis@yale.edu
Eli--the metrosexual part does not extend to fashion. Everything in Monsieur's side of the closet is grey, blue or black. He says he can't screw up that way.
Ah, but he does *worry* about screwing up. Telling.
They were probably all along the lines of "What's this word mean?"...
Eli
Aha! I see that you too have fallen prey to the unthinkably brilliant stratagem that gleefully and quite believably protraying yourself as a dim-witted, closed-minded hick is the *only* effective means of running the planet's only superpower.
It's brilliant!
Second, Bismarck's imperialism mostly (except for a piece of Africa) involved consolidating neighboring German-speaking mini-states into Prussia. It did not involve a long-term, bloody, cross-cultural adventure on the other side of the world.
What about the unbelievable Propaganda campaign number that Bismarck did on his own people, like they are doing to us?
Aha! I see that you too have fallen prey to the unthinkably brilliant stratagem that gleefully and quite believably protraying yourself as a dim-witted, closed-minded hick is the *only* effective means of running the planet's only superpower.
Well, see, if everyone thinks you're intelligent and rational, then they won't be sufficiently terrified of you.
Well, I had some hope for Bush until about halfway through the speech it becomes apparent that Gaddis seems to be a full-bore neocon who perhaps just doesn't know it.
Sorry.
Read the speech all the way through. Carefully. It is an exoneration of Bush policies with a few token swipes at the bungling of the Iraq War. It just doesn't cut it and it's certainly not flabbergasting, not in any positive way.
Just for the record, ignorance does not equal idiocy.
Anyone who thinks that, in a field such as politics, there is an apex to be reached, is foolish (if not an idiot).
Secular Human--I'm afraid I have to agree with you on that.
Howdy! Someone please give me a rundown of everything that's happening, that I can read while running back and forth from the kitchen.
Eli, you're nominated.
I'm flabbergasted that Avedon is flabbergasted and that Dave is flabbergasted.
Helen Thomas is still good.
Invasion, Not Newsweek, Responsible for Rioting
Howdy! Someone please give me a rundown of everything that's happening, that I can read while running back and forth from the kitchen.
Eli, you're nominated.
Uh-oh. If it doesn't involve a giant penis drill thrusting into the Earth's mantle to plant bombs, then I'm pretty much oblivious...
The only good thing Tea Leone has ever done was a sit-com called 'Flying Blind'.
The President of the United States, Formerly consider the Leader of the Free World, now under new management, retitled to the Executive Office Of the Empty Suit.
It is an exoneration of Bush policies with a few token swipes at the bungling of the Iraq War.
...I would say it's a full on neo-con wet dream. Why do they always carry on like the French at Agincourt from Henry V?
Just for the record, ignorance does not equal idiocy.
True, often the two converge, as when Shrub painfully attempts to explain anything with the slightest whiff of abstraction or complexity.
He often can't even get the carefully crayoned meme out of his mouth without fucking it up eight ways to Sunday.
That this is illustrative of his ignorance or idiocy or both, remains heatedly debated.
"Uh-oh. If it doesn't involve a giant penis drill thrusting into the Earth's mantle to plant bombs, then I'm pretty much oblivious..."
Eli, one would start believing that you spend all your time thinking about sex...
Uh-oh. If it doesn't involve a giant penis drill thrusting into the Earth's mantle to plant bombs, then I'm pretty much oblivious...
Eli
A penis drill, huh? Sounds sort of like a giant Mantlesquito.
Eli, your clouds................
how delicious and beautiful!!!
Phila--we're having blueberry pie and ice cream, if you'd like to join in.
Eli, one would start believing that you spend all your time thinking about sex...
One would probably be right...
Thanks, SD! Didja like the short story?
Sarah--Eli's clouds are indeed lovely.
eli, I cannot tell a lie, I have not read it yet. No justifications, only excuses. I will get to it, just haven';t yet. (hangs head in shame)
Thanks Hozee! Will read it after I have ploughed through the 'love letter to Santorum'. Might have to throw up, too - I mean, is this piece what passes for journalism now?
Aw, shucks. My clouds are blushing.
No worries, SD.
Tea Leoni is playing possibly the most selfish woman ever born.
Phila--we're having blueberry pie and ice cream, if you'd like to join in.
Sallyh, La Poissoniere
Love to...I'll even cast off my veganism for the occasion!
Tea Leoni is playing possibly the most selfish woman ever born.
Isn't she a little... skinny to play Bar?
Phila-did the thai food get rid of the headache.
Phila--no animal products were used in the manufacture of this pie.
Love to...I'll even cast off my veganism for the occasion!
Oooh. Maybe we'll get to see your stanem.
Thersites--what kind of results are you getting on the Connemara, or have you moved to the next specimen?
I can't understand any reason for me to read the
pro-santorum article because he repulses me and I haven't anyone telling me he was that interesting, although the story of him and his wife taking their fetus home to the family was fascinating.
Phila-did the thai food get rid of the headache.
magnolia
Yeah, actually! Unfortunately, it came back today with a vengeance...I've been a basketcase for most of the day. Feeling OK now, though.
Pretty sure it's sinus-related. The pollen is brutal the last couple days.
Magnolia--I considered their taking the dead fetus home to be child abuse. In CA, I believe it would also be against the law.
Phila--no animal products were used in the manufacture of this pie.
Sallyh, La Poissoniere
This could be love.
Phila--pollen about here is nasty, too. Claritin is a way of life.
Magnolia--I considered their taking the dead fetus home to be child abuse. In CA, I believe it would also be against the law.
Agreed. There are some things even dead fetuses shouldn't be subjected to.
Phila--pollen about here is nasty, too. Claritin is a way of life.
Sallyh, La Poissoniere
Yeah, I've been taking it a bunch...
Looks like I have to finish cooking dinner...I'll be back for that pie, though!
Yeah-scaring those poor little kids.
They'll remember in the back of their minds. Didn't they dress it up.
By then, maybe it will be against the law not to.
nice talk over pie. Sorry
You know, I am a liberal/progressive, and I have tried and tried to find a way to understand why the Santorums would talke the deaf fetus home to their children, and, frankly, I am almost there.
I can;t recall how far along in gestation that was, however.
My dad died at 82, the day before T'giving, and we opened the windows of his bedroom to keep it cold, and, throughout the day, until darkness fell and we called Rosenkrantz & Guildenstern to come and take his body away, we all visited w/his dead self throughout the day, having our final private talks with/to him, and tucking things into his pockets we wanted him to be cremated with.
Perhaps that's no less weird than Santorum's family wanting to acknowledge the child that did not live.
I dunno, guys. I have to tell you that sticking up for fucking Santirum is the LAST goddamned thing I'd ever want to do, but...given what my own family did and did gladly, I just have to say....
I will try to be original.
Gaddis justified "pre-emption" partially by the long tradition of pre-emptive wars, as "Spanish, Mexicans and Indians learned to their chagrin". Hm, I swallowed that when I read it.
However, WTF is going on? What dangers were "pre-empted" by wars with Spain, Mexico and Indian tribes? These were wars of conquest and annexation. The idea was "manifest destiny" and no stinking "pre-emption". Either Gaddis is an idiot, or he dishonestly piles arguments, or, most probably, "pre-emption" is basically a code word. Frank talk about conquests and manifest destiny (to rule) is frawned upon, so some code-words are needed.
OTOH, it is possible that Gaddis IS an idiot. IMHO, the criticism that Administration should secure more international support before the otherwise laudable war is moronic. Personally, I am amazed how much support they got -- given how misbegotten the idea was, and I challenge anyone to describe how one could have done more. Still, this is not a criticism but, again, a code word, a shiboleth of a certain political option -- imperialist Democrats.
Sarah--I think what was going on here was that your da was dying, had had a full life, and you were adults. It's quite different for the young ones. My baby brother found my da dead in his room at the age of 14, and to this day, it still freaks him to have to be anywhere near death. He can't deal with funerals.
I dunno, guys. I have to tell you that sticking up for fucking Santirum is the LAST goddamned thing I'd ever want to do, but...given what my own family did and did gladly, I just have to say....
Sarah Deere
Your dad was a grown man who died peacefully in his bed.
I'm sorry; bringing a miscarried fetus home to your children...I find that disturbing. How are children supposed to process seeing something like that?
"We Now Know" is an excellent overview of the Cold War. But that's all. Personally, I didn't think it was anything special. Well, that is, none of it was news to anyone who'd been paying attention, damnit during the last sixty years or so.
Well, I was in high school when it was written, so I guess I had a different approach to it than you did. For me it really was reading about history, for the most part, rather than about things that I considered current events during my lifetime.
As for whether Gaddis is a tool or not, I don't know. There's a difference between being a tool politically and being one academically. Academically, I think he is regarded as pretty legit and I'm sure Yale is very proud to have him.
I am amused by the fact that we're supposed to be amazed that the President actually reads books and thinks about them. If this were Clinton, Gore or Kerry, we would regard a story like this as ho-hum. It's only Bush's mockery of intellectuals and narrow-mindedness that his is even a story. It's like, "Wow, the President has read a book and he's listened to someone who criticized him." Maybe he should award himself a medal.
Maybe he should award himself a medal.
Not until after he forces himself to resign.
Fun to bash his intellect, but in a lot of ways not productive- if he was half as stupid as we like to think there's no way the Big Money would have got behind him the way it did in the late 1990s.
nick carraway
that's just ridiculous.
Bush is not stupid. Sociopathic and cunning, yes. But I think it would be a mistake to think he's stupid. I think he wants us to believe he's stupid.
(passes around more pie and ice cream, and wonders where Dudley the cat is.)
Sallyh, I take your point. My point is, I suppose, that the Santorums *meant well*, and, however misguided I believe them to have been (and I believe they were - horribly), it was apparently something they could legally do and which they chose to do. I am amazed that they could do that, however - amazed and surprised. Don't know the logistics. Where did the premature birth occur? Hospital? Hospitals allow this, the taking home of the dead premature infant? What's the next legal step..?
My point, though, is, I suppose, that families have a right of some sort to mourn their own.
One wonders what our ancestors did when they lost children in childbirth this way. I suspect they gathered together, washed and clothed the dead almost-child, and buried it, together.
You must know I am a Santorum-loather, but I have to confront what I believe to be true.
SD
I agree entirely with you, Sallyh, La Poissoniere!
clean sheets
Sarah--your point is well taken.
There's a difference between being a tool politically and being one academically. Academically, I think he is regarded as pretty legit and I'm sure Yale is very proud to have him.
Um, no, not really. There is actually a good argument to be made that Gaddis should not have gone, and if he did, should certainly not have been talking about it. For no other reason than his reputation. He should not have written that speech: it seems clear that his head was turned by the pomp of the occasion, which is embarrassing, given how chintzy said pomp really appears.
He looks like a tool, and he clearly got played. Sorry.
I'm sorry; bringing a miscarried fetus home to your children...I find that disturbing. How are children supposed to process seeing something like that?
GN |
how would you have them process it otherwise?
Not being hostile - just asking.
SD
Dude, you linked (approvingly?) to someone with LGF and BlogsforTerri on the roll. WHAT THE FUCK?
Damn. My local friggin' hospital NEVER lets me take infectious human tissue home with me...
Ricky must be special.
The letter is simply bullshit. The author misses the main complaint about Bush that many people - not just liberals - have.
He writes, of Bush's speech:
"First, that it was a nice speech, but that Bush’s credibility is zero: no one believes anything he says.
This is, to me, a somewhat puzzling comment, because Bush has generally done what he promised to do: he said he would overthrow the Taliban, that he would get rid of Saddam Hussein, that he would isolate Arafat as a way of restarting the Arab-Israeli peace process, that he would pressure Arab allies to move toward democracy, that he would promote the holding of elections in Afghanistan, the Palestinian territories, and Iraq – and that he would protect the United States against future terrorist attacks. He has, in fact, done all of those things: it seems to me his credibility should, by now, be pretty high.
My guess is that there are two reasons why it isn’t.
One is that no weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq. But every intelligence agency in the world also believed that they were there, and it may be that Saddam Hussein believed that also. That they weren’t, was universally unexpected.
The recently released report of the Weapons of Mass Destruction – while it does not attempt to evaluate the Bush administration’s use of the intelligence it received – provides plenty of evidence that internal flaws within the American intelligence establishment were enough in and of themselves to produce a flawed product.
The Bush administration was no doubt unwise to emphasize WMD as much as it did as a justification for the war in Iraq – it had lots of other good reasons for going in. But deliberate deception has yet to be proven."
Well, that's just BS, BS and more BS.
There were literally THOUSANDS of people saying, prior to the war, that the case for WMD was NOT made, and those people were roundly mocked and ignored.
WMD were NOT "universally expected", not by any body of people, nor by any intel agency.
The history of the run-up to the war is the history of stove-piping shoddy intel and outright lying to make a case for war.
Deliberate deception HAS been proven.
This, coupled with the incredible slate of lies spewed by Bush's team about the war, how easy it would be, how cheap, and how successful - all that was a load of utter BS, and was delivered in spite of the protests of literally DOZENS of government workers, including men like Shinseki, who said it was all BS.
Prof. Gaddis, where the fuck have you BEEN? What the fuck is wrong with you?
Bush has lied about EVERY fucking aspect of the war in Iraq, and been WRONG in every assessment he's made about the war and its aftermath. Every action he has taken has failed, and WE are paying the price.
The war is a humongous disaster, it is getting hundreds of good American soldiers killed, and your cutesy story about getting invited to lecture Bush and his team makes me sick.
I don't think Bush is remotely stupid, either, if I left that impression. The idea that Big Money went to Bush because he's not stupid is what I found ridiculous. Big Money went to Bush because he IS Big Money.
Bush is incompetent and corrupt.
This isn't exactly a man bites dog story. This author is a flaming neocon idealist who thinks it's a terrific idea for America to fight imperialist wars to spread democracy. He quibbles about some details, but he agrees wholeheartedly with Bush's core objectives.
I guess the quibbling is what's supposed to give him credibility as a Straight Shooter Who Speaks Truth To Power.
What-ever.
Sally, I propose to characterize Bush's abilities thus:
Bush, in spite of appearances of which there are many, is not stupid.
Is an administration that nominates Bully Bolton to be ambassador to the UN truly serious about obtaining multilateral support for its foreign policy initiatives?
Gaddis is a tool.
Never thought Bush was stupid. It doesn't surprise me that he would pick up a phrase or two from Gaddis & have the professor by for a chat. I accept that the actual workings inside the White House are very different than all of us have imagined at one time or another. But remember this about Gaddis: he has long been a master in the field of popularization (at least within the collegiate community) of US ``Grand Strategy'' planning -- while at the same time he has been a master chronicler of the secret, inner-most machinations of the ugliest aspects of that planning. He knows how to walk the line between the core academic necessities for the practitioners, and the popular notions needed to sell policies that are always disastrous for those on top of whose heads the bombs fall. It's easier to avert our eyes from the mess, the death, the stealing, the torture, and the hypocrisy if we've been sold that the greater good of ``freedom from tryanny'' is our quest.
Deep Blade wrote:
It's easier to avert our eyes from the mess, the death, the stealing, the torture, and the hypocrisy if we've been sold that the greater good of ``freedom from tryanny'' is our quest.
Yes, Deep Blade, and that's especially if one disagrees with my strong belief that you will never achieve ultimate freedom from tyranny using those methods.
He looks like a tool, and he clearly got played
It profiteth not a man to gain the world and lose his soul.... but for a chocolate freedom tart?
Eugh.
Why be flabbergasted? This dude Gaddis just gave a big, deep, wet kiss to W. Why wouldn't W be happy about Gaddis?
The criticism Gaddis leveled is irrelevant now. Gaddis has said, 'listen - i am not perfect either, so this Bush guy and his team are fine by me'.
Where do they find these people? Is it all a joke? Could this professor really have excused Bush from his lying the country into war? Donating 100,000+ lives in the cause of 'freedom'? Gaddis' writing just completely leaves out all the evidence of Bush's duplicity - either that, or he sees that duplicity as completely irrelevant to policy and the future of America. Bizarre, if any of it is true...
rove move plain and simple
Why are you impressed?
this is just a more sophisticated apologist for George Bush and his deception.
Grand Strategist my eye--- so was Al Capone
2 small disingenuous pieces by Herr Professor.
His claim that almost everyone in the foreign relations and intelligence community believed, before the war and during, that there were WMD. Millions of Americans, like me and millions who protested the war, were not so credulous as Yale professors.
2nd he elides any discusiion of the use and manipulation of intelligence in order to lay a false groundwork for the war.
Before praising this apologia read the whole PIECE CAREFULLY ALL THE DAMN WAY THROUGH
Wow, this site has been Drummed down.
Drumbed down.
GWB reading a book notwithstanding, this particular book is based on loony fantasies... Noam Chomsky talks at length about it (and the white house) here:
http://www.earthinstitute.columb...licy/
video.html
So Bush imagines himself to be Bismark? Yet another self delusion in their world of altered reality.
In the reality based universe, everyone knows the Vice President is Bismark. Jeez, Cheney must be laughing his double wide ass off at this.
I am reminded of an old Star Trek episode, where the entire society is based on Nazi Germany. The Earth Historian violates the Prime Directive and screws up the planet by using Nazi Germany as a template for society. So, it's fair to say that Bismarck leads to Hitler, right? To quote Captain Kirk: "Why that example????"
You are being taken for a ride. That guy is simply rationalizing for Bush through the back-door. "Tell me about Bismarck." Anyone who believes Bush would have any interest in Bismarck is a mark. The guy said a few bad things about Bush's policy, then went on to excuse it with:
1. Everyone thought there were weapons of mass destruction (I guess I was standing on the street passing out free CD-Roms with evidence to the contrary for my health). Tell the guy to get a computer and internet access if he believes that.
2. It was intelligence failures - Uh, proven now that the intelligence was "fixed".
3. Bush really is for Democracy - I guess except for Haiti, Venezuela, Uzbekistan and whichever other client state.
4. The left have no ideas - Well we could talk about national health care for starters, but when the house is on fire you have to put it out; you don't sit around and talk about building a recreation center for the block - even if the fire was started deliberately.
5. The guy had plenty of right wing talking points, including Michael Moore bashing, liberals have no new ideas, Bad intelligence, This is all about hating Bush, the torture was due only to mismanagement, not policy etc.
The whole premise, that Bush actually read a book that is purportedly critical of his foreign policy and took some interest in it and Bismarck is a real laugher.
A quick google search and we can see who we're dealing with...
"Although Mr. Gaddis faults the president for not gathering sufficient international support before the invasion of Iraq and underestimating the challenges of postwar Iraq, the professor supported Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Many other academics opposed the war, making them reluctant to credit the president for a change in U.S. foreign policy that could very well endure for the next half-century, Mr. Gaddis said.
"The academic world is of course predominantly liberal, predominately Democratic, so there is a predisposition to be less critical of a Democratic administration than there is a Republican administration," he said.
Mr. Gaddis, who described himself as a "very long-term, disillusioned Democrat who still has hope for the Democratic Party," disputed the liberal stereotype of the president as a lightweight.
"There certainly has been a tendency to underestimate Bush himself and to view him in the way that Reagan was viewed when he first came in — as being a cipher, manipulated by his own advisers," he added. "That turned out not to be true of Reagan, and it's turning out not to be true of Bush as well."
"...it’s all being done for oil, or for Halliburton, or for the Carlyle Group, or whatever – in short, the Michael Moore view of history."
Halliburton family has set it sights on mideast oil almost a hundred years and was a partner to BP when they ceded Kuwait after the World Wars as part of a 50-50 split. Read about the Neutral zone violations of Iraqi land (square parcels of land orginally Iraq's shared between Saud/Kuwati and Iraqi/Kuwaiti and Saud/Iraqi parcels, each of which was capable of claiming revenues at times to inflate stock prices and expected growth projections/returns estimates. These zones were then slant drilled further into Iraq land using drill heads patented by the Tutwiler family who lived next to the Halliburtons in Memphi,TN.
The netural zone concessions of a 60 year lease include: Phillips Petrol 33.54%, Singal Oiland gas, 30.16%, Ashland oil and refining 12.70%, Ralph K. Davies 6.98%, J.S.Abercrombie 6.35%, Crescent Corp. 3.17%, Sunray Mid Continent Oil Co. 2.65%, Globe Oil and refining 1.59%, Lario Oil and Gas co. 1.59% and Pauley Petrol 1.27%
PLUS Getty Oil's 79% take in the Sauds share for a 60 years lease, other shareholders 21%.
Carlyle group?
"To a shower of gold, most thinmgs are pentrable." -Thomas Carlysle. Strange how Colin Powell told the Taliban something similar.
The Mosul oil fields on the 1920s featured Standard oil concessions to the Rockefellors.
Kuwait and Britain shared generous concessions with the Mellon-Scaifes.
Tell us again about your quaint historical revision, you stuffy elitist asshat.
"...only if you require, of presidential administrations, freedom from inconsistency – the absence throughout their term in office of gaps between aspirations and actual practices."
Incosistency = lying. Such an elitist way of terming this has given you the wrong license to merit such information exhcange.
"It was the Clinton administration, for example, that averted its eyes from the horrors in Rwanda, demanding that the word “genocide” not even be used in characterizing what plainly was that, lest telling the truth commit the United States to taking action."
Wag. The. Dog. Tell me again what George Bush said at that time- deregulation of utilities was a good idea?
Rwanda is the entire world's fault in terms of those who seek the benefits of globalism.
Notice iraq(afghanistan,etc) is doing the same thing- boiling into tribalism/ethnic/religious killings.
"The great confidence his critics hold in their understanding of Bush, which has been re-inforced time and again from watching their predictions come true, has given them the boldness needed to say things that others may construe as being radical; at least until they are proven correct once again."(anon copy)
Halliburton - The Nigerian Connection
"The lowest toll ever paid was in 1928 when Richard Halliburton donned swimming suit, swam through the locks and paid a toll of 36 cents."
Avedon: as clearly illustrated above - the book the President liked was about how wonderful the President's policies are.
This isn't the work of "Gadabout Gaddis" who used to show us how to fly fish on TV. No, he'd say, if he were alive, "Quick, get the net; we've got a whopper!"
It's pointless really to add a comment to such a lengthy file, but. Having read the article linked in this post, I just have to comment. John Gaddis is engaged in apologia in this speech, not analysis. He claims that Bush has set out to do everything he has said he is going to do and that this should be a reason to trust the man. Hm. Why would I trust a burglar who tells me he's going to rob my children of their retirement and disability funding? Why would I trust a religious bigot who tells me he's going to fight a crusade on my behalf when I'm not a religious bigot myself?
Okay, you get my point. But Gaddis thinks the reason the president doesn't inspire 'confidence' is because no WMD showed up in Iraq. He goes on to say that every intelligence agency in the world thought there was WMD in Iraq. But today on page A27 in the Post is a little story about how the senior intel officers were concerned prior to the invasion of Iraq that there were no nuclear weapons in Iraq and maybe not much else in the way of WMD. The story also mentions the much-ignored Downing Street Memo. Which most certainly predated the invasion and the amazing discovery of No-WMD.
nothing to see in that speech - move along...
the prof blusters at first, but his proof simply coincides with Bush's reality...
that professor does nothing for progress - he is practically a shill for his fuhrer!
bah!
Chocolate Freedom Tart
5 oz. unsalted butter, room temp.
2 oz. unsweetened chocolate
5 oz. bittersweet chocolate
1 CUP PRE-SWEETENED STRAWBERRY KOOL-AID POWDER
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
pinch salt
2 large eggs
1 large egg yolk
3 oz.(2/3 cup) all purpose flour
1 packet PRE-SWEETENED STRAWBERRY KOOL-AID powder
small jar strawberry jelly
1 pint cleaned hulled whole strawberries
Heavy whipping cream, 1 pint
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 packets PRE-SWEETENED STRAWBERRY KOOL-AID powder
Heat oven to 350 degrees. Butter a 9 inch spring-form pan, line with parchment paper.
Melt butter and both chocolates in double boiler. Cool slightly, whisk in
KOOL-AID POWDER, salt and vanilla. Whisk in eggs, one at a time. Fold in flour, beating until smooth and thickened. Pour into prepared pan, bake until toothpick inserted in center shows moist crumbs, 35 to 40 minutes. Let cool 1 hour, turn out cake and cool completely on rack.
Arrange whole strawberries point up on cake. Melt jelly and PRE-SWEETENED STRAWBERRY KOOL-AID over low heat in small pan. Brush melted jelly and KOOL-AID mixture over cake and strawberries. Chill.
Whip cream until soft peaks form, Add KOOL-AID powder, vanilla and whip until blended.
Slice tart, arrange on plates, garnish with whipped cream.
I have to agree with Dave, way upthread and Steve Expat about Bush and PR. Further, the Bismarck line gives the whole game away. Bush is not aware of Bismarck? Only a benighted rube from the backwoods would buy that one!
Gaddis does little than voice the primary opposition points to Bush policy, and like many other shills, Gaddis is creating the straw dog illusion that Bush is somehow "underestimated."
We have seen Bush exposed. Abu Ghraib, Bagram, Iraq in general, the Social Security scam, the judge issue, the economy, the list is almost endless when it comes to failure upon failure of the Bush administartion.
Which do you care to believe? Bush's political imagry, or you own eyes which read the casualty lists, which see the Abu Ghraib scam of 10 investigations with NO fingerpointing even at the administration, which see the unemployment, read the bankruptcy column, and see the crime?
We must choose. The pretty straw dog, or the grim, ugly, and gruesome even reality that is the Bush administration's miserable failures.
Bush is NOT an idiot. He's worse, he's WRONG and stubornly so.
The second administration for any president seems to be all focused on their place in history. The Bush administration is focusing now on posterity and impressing their posteriors. WHat better way than through this fellow.
Having said that there is also the fact that a Bismarck is also a pastry.
Mmmmmmm, pastry!
DOH!
Explanation for professor's delusions:
(1) The recipe for the freedom tart forgot to mention the hashish in, "Karl's downhome special recipe."
(2) They finally got the "bulge" working again after the election.
I don't see anything in the perfesser's talk about the continuing disconnect between the administration rhetoric and its actions, or lack thereof. There's been absolutely no sign that I know of that the admin. has begun to actually change its boneheaded ways. We have the perfesser's impression that there is the idea in the admin. that they ought to, however. Drug addicts are forever promising themselves to kick the habit someday...right after their next fix, aren't they?
Prof. Gaddis delivered this speech on May 21; the Downing Street Memo came out on May 1; nearly 3 weeks, it appears, was not long enough for this new information to inform the professor's remarks.
Three Points:
First, the professor just doesn't get it when it comes to the issue of oil and Haliburton. He argues that the Bushites could have just as easily cut a deal with Saddam rather than go to war. Herr Doktor Professor, the issue for this administration is not about oil in and of itself. (The major oil companies were actually against the invasion.) It's about RECONSTRUCTION, which is precisely what Haliburton and its many subsidaries do.
Second, not all the world's intelligence agencies were convinced that Iraq has WMD. Certainly, the UN inspectors and many agents in the CIA and MI6 said before the invasion there were no WMD. The Bush administration lied--pure and simple.
Lastly, if Bush and his cabinet of cynics really are thinking about Bismarck as a model worthy of emulation, then we can expect American imperialism to rapidly expand its dominion, then most likely collapse in on itself, just as Germany had to given the forced alignment of otherwise conflicting ideologies, regional ethnic groups and the shock of the fragmentation of the German churches. The Holocaust did not happen because of Christian antisemitism; rather it happened because Christian morality (however oxymoronic this may in fact be) evaporated when the German churches fell apart in the decades following Bismarck's kulturkampf. Nazism was something of a pagan relacement for the vacuum left by the collapse of Christendom in nineteenth-century central Europe.
Every historian of European history worth his or her salt can tell you that the era of American imperialism is on the verge of peaking, after which we'll see the inevitable decline, not from cultural debauchery but from foreign policy incompetence and economic greed--in short, overexpansion and mismanagement.
Like Shaw in Stalin's Russia the esteemed professor has seen the future, and it works!
So, let me get this straight. Bush believes what he's saying when he says he's spreading freedom and democracy. And when you look at the systemic problem of torture, you have to give him a pass because other presidents have done bad things.
Does this mean that I can start robbing banks and killing people because there is a precedent for it having been done?
Someone may have made this comment,but it's early, and I'm tired and too lazy
to read thru the rest of the comments:
"Prof describes Bismarck as having “replaced his destabilizing strategy
with a new one aimed at consolidation and reassurance – at persuading
his defeated enemies as well as nervous allies and alarmed bystanders that they
would be better off living within the new system he had imposed on them than
by continuing to fight or fear it.”
Now wonder Bush wants to know more about Bismarck"
That's the thing that stuck out to me, too. It seemed as if he didn't call
Gaddis in to learn from his (bush's) mistakes, but from (of all countries!)
Germany's mistakes.
I also think that we progressives are making a big mistake by relying on the fact that Mr. Bush is stupid, silly, ignorant, whatever. The man is devious and probably very smart.
Bush is smarter than we give him credit for, but not as smart as he thinks.
I think we now know how Rush would have conveyed his apologies for this administration if he had pursued an academic career instead of spewing his baloney on radio. The joke's on Gaddis, though. Rush gets paid $20+MM to cover for this administration. Mr. Gaddis gives it away for free.
Avedon/atrios, you're scaring me.
What's to learn from Gaddis's speech, or to learn about Bushco? You should be so familiar with this routine fog that you know better; I see no evidence worth anything (what Rice SAYS is evidence? what Bush SAYS is evidence?) that Bush has read a single line of Gaddis's book.
Or even any evidence that that book wasn't regarded as grist to the neocon mill from the start (look at the site that the speech is posted on via atrios's link!), once it was suitably "contextualized."
Again: you're scaring me!
I also think that we progressives are making a big mistake by relying on the fact that Mr. Bush is stupid, silly, ignorant, whatever. The man is devious and probably very smart.
Bush is smarter than we give him credit for, but not as smart as he thinks.
I think we now know how Rush would have conveyed his apologies for this administration if he had pursued an academic career instead of spewing his baloney on radio. The joke's on Gaddis, though. Rush gets paid $20+MM to cover for this administration. Mr. Gaddis gives it away for free.
Thios stinks of Katherin 'Disconnect' Harris:
"CUTIE PIE????" (typical fluff piece by her, friends). Expect babs to go on a media campaign once again.
Bush supporters ARE severely brain-damaged. As I've said before, they think Preznit Jerkoff is all that because he is dumber than a stump - like they are!
And THIS chicken-hawk is speaking at Annapolis???? WTF!
"Bush gets mixed reception at Christian college
By Caren Bohan2 hours, 20 minutes ago
President Bush on Saturday championed faith in American society, but ran into some criticism as courted his Christian base in a commencement speech at a Michigan college.
The headline is the story- Bush Christian College...
Someone should have said- Bush gets reception at C.hristian C.ollege.C.ommencement!
I also think that we progressives are making a big mistake by relying on the fact that Mr. Bush is stupid, silly, ignorant, whatever. The man is devious and probably very smart.
Bush is smarter than we give him credit for, but not as smart as he thinks.
I think we now know how Rush would have conveyed his apologies for this administration if he had pursued an academic career instead of spewing his baloney on radio. The joke's on Gaddis, though. Rush gets paid $20+MM to cover for this administration. Mr. Gaddis gives it away for free.
George bush has never read a book in his life. Never.
I also think that we progressives are making a big mistake by relying on the fact that Mr. Bush is stupid, silly, ignorant, whatever. The man is devious and probably very smart.
Bush is smarter than we give him credit for, but not as smart as he thinks.
I think we now know how Rush would have conveyed his apologies for this administration if he had pursued an academic career instead of spewing his baloney on radio. The joke's on Gaddis, though. Rush gets paid $20+MM to cover for this administration. Mr. Gaddis gives it away for free.
Please. As if.
On the other hand, perhaps he's a Cunning Sociopath:
http://www.georgewalkerbush.net/
...ngSociopath.htm
But I think he's actually a spoiled five-year-old and everyone's pretending otherwise.
Gaddis.Isn't that the bits of flesh discarded after a circumcision? Just wondering...
Characters Remaining:
Commenting by HaloScan
