...And Now I Will Take Your Questions
There is a lot to be proud of being American. We have gender equality, racial equality, freedom of religion and we are all of us within easy driving distance of a cheeseburger (probably made that day!) even in the darkest hours of the night. Crown thy good with brotherhood, y'all. The BK way.

My favorite part about being American? Probably the cultural pressure for women to be thin AND have giant boobs. As an added economic bonus, those have also driven the very lucrative porn, plastic surgery and eating-disorder industries, the backbones of our financial well-being. Seriously, you can see their backbones. And their ribs.

My second favorite part? Freedom of speech. I can say whatever I want whenever I want to. Watch: FIRE IN A CROWDED THEATER! See? No reprisals. I defy you, Supreme Court. Yes, I enjoy just that much freedom. I am grateful to whatever country it was that invaded us back in 1776 to free us from the tyranny of English rule to establish a foothold for democracy in North America, stabilizing the region and allowing for the better exploitation of our natural resources. Probably France, I guess. Or maybe Canada. I don't know. I studied European history.

We know from the Iraq example, though, this is how democracies are made: forcibly imposed by an overwhelming military external force. It is, alas, the nature of things, regrettable though it may be.

But since I have freedom of speech, I can do things like watch President Bush's press conference on Iraq and make uncomplimentary comments and observations as I go.

First, a brief summation:

Man, presidenting is still hard. How many times does he have to tell you people his job is hard? It's like you don't listen. All you want to talk about is details and more details about invasion this and occupy that and improvised explosive device this other thing... Don't you people realize he has to talk directly to Donald Rumsfeld every single day? How about some love for Bush?

"Adjusting our tactics" is not a lot of ad hoc flailing because we have no comprehensive plan in place for events past, say, Thursday. Again: it's not that. It's us actually being crafty. The terrorists never know where we're going to go. If we know what we're going to do, they'll just figure it out. Best to keep everyone guessing. Complete abdication of strategic thinking = total operational secrecy.

According to the commanders in the field, thus far in Iraq, we've never lost a battle. Dang, there's a saying I can remember about winning battles but losing the... something. Tip of my tongue... bah, it'll come to me.

In World War II, we fought against anywhere from two to three other nations.

Benchmarks vs. timetables. It's not semantics. Let me explain how it's not semantics by laying out overly complicated, excruciatingly detailed definitions of the words and then give examples to show how they are different even though the things I'm saying are the same. Semantics is... something else. I don't know. Sounds like some kind of cross between cement and plastic. Probably wicked hard. Just like presidenting.

Democrats aren't unpatriotic, they just don't understand. We should feel bad for them because they are so very stupid. Also: will raise your taxes and hand your daughters over to terrorists. Again, not unpatriotic though.

President Bush believes very strongly that what he is doing is right. That's the same as actually being right.

Listen, I'm not one of those people who just snipe from the sidelines and make no positive contributions. Well, OK, I mostly am, but this post isn't excruciatingly long enough to meet the Popsian standard of splitting headaches amongst the readership, so I'm going to keep typing until my fingers are sleepy.

The main gist of the President's statements were as follows: basically if we don't win in Iraq (stable government, integrity of current borders, no total civil war, terrorists gone, secular state... you know, the little things) the terrorists will sweep in and make Iraq a terrorist utopia of sharia law floating on a deep reservoir of sweet, delicious oil they will pump out of the ground and have carried in barrels across the desert on the backs of burkha-ed, saddled women.

The problem as I see is that the Iraqis are lazy. It's not an ethnic observation, it's just that they have gotten so used to living under Saddam, the busy-body uncle who made sure there was funding for government work and a healthy flow of dead neighbors to keep you just motivated enough to get the job done, they have sort of forgotten how to be self-starters. I mean, come on, it's been 3 1/2 years since we invaded. Bush has said from the beginning that we will stand down when the Iraqis stand up. I used to think that that was some kind of metaphor for their ability to self-police and self-govern. Now I'm not sure he wasn't being completely literal. Iraqis seem to be the laying-down-ingest people ever.

I mean heck, we even had to invade and forcibly topple his government FOR them.

The threat of instability and the potential for the existence of an extremist state in the region is clearly Saddam's fault. If only he had not allowed himself to be defeated and removed from power, we would have a stable enemy of extremism in the region. But he let himself get his ass beat and now look where we are. Now it's all our problem to fix his mess. And he didn't even have any good WMDs. We could use us some crude WMDs right about now, I'm telling you. Fucking Saddam, man.

What I'm proposing is that, with the ethno-religious schisms seeming to be intractable, we need a new strongman, a single locus of power to focus authority, fear and to get the trains running on time.

I suggest we send Rush Limbaugh.

I used to sort of just ignore the guy, but now he's coming out saying Michael J. Fox is pretending to have Parkinson's Disease. You know, for the Parkinson's groupies, I guess. That's just plain ole dickish.

And what else do you need to be a dictator than a good healthy heap o' dickishness? Total disregard for the suffering of others is, I think, a paramount quality you need for someone who may or may not need to own and operate a rape room.

We know he loves America, but isn't too keen on stuff like dialogue or people who disagree with him on anything ever. Plus we know if we just keep him supplied with a steady suppy of opioids and he's right in our pocket for life. Free oil for everybody!

The more I think about it, the more I like it.

...WAR! That's the word I was trying to remember. That was lucky. That was going to bother me all day.




This post on the Narcissus Scale: 7.5



Pops

- posted by Pops @ 10:38 AM