White House Press Briefing, 6/15/06

Q: Tony, American deaths in Iraq have reached 2,500. Is there any response or reaction from the President on that?

MR. SNOW: It’s a number, and every time there’s one of these 500 benchmarks people want something.

…

Q Would you like to reaffirm what you said earlier today, that the U.S. wants no permanent bases in Iraq?

MR. SNOW: Well, I think — let me — because — can you define what a permanent base is?

…

MR. SNOW: And yes, the answer is, the ethical standard still applies.

Q And what is the ethical standard?

MR. SNOW: You tell me. I mean, the President said the higher ethical standard — you were reciting a thing. You know what the President says is, you serve honorably, you serve well, you obey the law.

…

Q Now you still have an upcoming Cheney trial, so –

MR. SNOW: Libby trial. Libby trial.

Not content with 2,500 American military deaths in Iraq and a budget the size of the rest of the world’s military expenditure, the Pentagon issued a truly bizarre document to Congresspeople today, to give them talking points for a Congressional debate on the war.

Also, in the interest of pandering to optimally divisive rhetoric, a memorandum from House Majority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, urged House Republican members Tuesday to make the debate not one of real issues, but “a portrait of contrasts between Republicans and Democrats.”

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–The moments that make up a dull day: The Chronicle covers Joe Montana turning 50.

–The House will be livelier: it will debate today whether or not Iraq is a “central front” in the GWOT. “The resolution says we support the status quo.”

–This should appeal to bloggers: You can text questions this morning at 9:30 Pacific (12:30 Eastern) to Dana Priest. It doesn’t hurt to have the text stream running in a side window, anyway. Priest has been behind some of the most daring stories in America about national security. UPDATE: start time delayed to 1 p.m. Eastern.

–Always, always, the president tells us to be patient. Until Jan. 20, 2009?

–You may like some background on this one. The Congressional Black Caucaus wanted to stake their trust in William Jefferson, which rankled Pelosi and promised to be messy for Democrats. But now it appears some key CBC people are breaking ranks.

–Following up an item from yesterday: Lieberman gets encouragement from a predictable quarter to leave the Democratic Party.

–One of the new guys at RealClearPolitics says, on leaving the left: “At the time, I rooted, as did all my friends, for Miss Hill, hoping that her testimony would result in Thomas not getting confirmed. In retrospect, I’m ashamed that I was ever on the “side” of people who so viciously demonized a decent, qualified person like Judge Thomas, whether you agree with his judicial philosophy or not.” If that’s not quite speedy enough, try this quick parse: “I voted for Al Gore in 2000. When he lost, I was disappointed, mostly in my fellow Democrats for thinking that the election had been “stolen” and in having forgotten their American history. The Electoral College has elected three other Presidents in our history: John Quincy Adams in1824, Rutherford B. Hayes in 1876, and Benjamin Harrison in 1888.”

–A Bukowkski archive, the besotted papers of which figure to have served as coasters in their time, goes to…the…Huntington, where you can’t even take pens into their research rooms.

Yesterday, there was the complete farce of a staged swearing in ceremony, before the results have been certified, which MSM fell for. Today, there are more irregularities with the Busby/Bilbray election, and MSM are not touching them.

“I don’t know….I think it’s highly improbable,” he said.

“Improbable?” I wondered. “I’m not asking if it’s probable or not, but if it’s possible…”

His reply blew me away: “I don’t think so, because you’d have to want to commit a felony, which knocks out most of our poll workers.”

MSM readers, take note: election problems are indeed exhausting; yet we voters are defeated only when you are exhausted by them. Your role is to not be exhausted by what is exhausting to everyone else. Keep looking at this.

Email from my good buddy Ken Mehlman, delivered yesterday, the very day of Bush’s Operation Baghdad Photo Op, a daring five-hour mission to provide as many photo opportunities as possible for President Bush:

These are days of decision in the War on Terror. Today, President Bush traveled to Iraq to meet with the new democratically-elected government and deliver a simple message from the American people: “We stand with you.”

The progress in Iraq would have seemed impossible just a short time ago. A permanent government elected by the Iraqi people. Iraqi forces increasingly taking the lead in providing for the safety and security of their country. And just last week, the removal of Iraq’s most dangerous terrorist, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

Now is the time to stand together to ensure that our job gets done. Sign our message of support for the mission in Iraq - and reject efforts by some Democrats who want to cut and run at the worst possible time.

The way forward in Iraq won’t be easy. We can still expect to see hard days, with terrorists lashing out violently. President Bush understands that victory will come if we stand strong, renew our resolve, and never give in to these assassins. The terrorists tried to derail our progress by attacking our troops - and failed. Then they turned to killing innocent Iraqis - and failed. They tried to stop the Iraqi people from choosing a temporary government, a constitution, and now a permanent government - and they failed each and every time. The celebration on Iraqi streets that greeted al-Zarqawi’s death said it all: whatever the challenges, Americans and Iraqis stand side by side for victory over the terrorists.

At home, completing the mission means rejecting craven, politically-motivated demands for instant withdrawal. Think of the message that would send our troops - and our enemies - at this critical time.

Bush’s trip to Iraq was pure political grandstanding, designed not to bolster al-Maliki, but as part of a GOP effort to dress up the pig which is our occupation in Iraq, in advance of the Fall elections. Our own polls show that the American presence in Iraq is wildly unpopular, and Bush’s approval ratings in Iraq are even lower than his dismals ones at home. It was conceived for no discernible purpose, other than trying to resell the Iraq War and Bush’s leadership to the American people.

For all Mehlman’s talk of “progress” in Iraq, he has little to point to — other than photo ops and empty rhetoric. “Stand strong,” “renew our resolve,” and “never give in” — and look at the nice photos of Bush from Baghdad. . . . We’ve “progressed” to the point, after 39 months, where Bush can secretly sneak into Baghdad (but can’t drive from the airport because the road is too dangerous) for a few hours to snap some photos — as long as he doesn’t tell even the Iraqi government he is coming - because it’s too dangerous. We may be standing “side by side” with Iraqi troops, (who may or may not moonlight as sectarian death squads), but we’re not standing close enough to tell the Prime Minister of Iraq that Bush is coming to his capital.

Trainwreck Media Mogul Roger Simon, via Tristam Shandy:

1) I am one of those who worries about global warming, but I am not a scientist. In fact, many of those who worry about global warming are not scientists. And those scientists who often worry most about global warming are not really scientists either - they are in something called “environmental studies” or the like.

He reads like one of those screenwriters who can’t write a lick or sell a script. And those screenwriters who can’t write worth a shit or sell a script are not really screenwriters, they are something called “failures.”

Have at it, MR…

Thanks, we did.

Washington Post:

Bush Upbeat on Iraq After Baghdad Visit
President Bush, back from a surprise trip to Baghdad yesterday, said today his visit renewed his confidence that he has a viable partner in Iraq’s new leadership, and he announced plans to dispatch several Cabinet secretaries and other top officials to confer with their Iraqi counterparts.

Rasmussen:

Overall, 46% of Americans say Bush is doing a poor job in Iraq. That’s unchanged from before al-Zarqawi was killed. Measures of the President’s overall Job Approval and of the nation’s economic confidence confirm the lack of any upward move in the President’s ratings.

Forty-seven percent (47%) now believe the situation in Iraq will be seen as a failure in the long run. Just 35% believe it will be seen as a success. Those figures are essentially unchanged over the past week.

Crooks and Liars has the video — Malkin gives a big thumbs up for Gitmo suicides, saves her compassion for transgendered ass.

And as TBogg points out, “Hadji girl” is A-okay as well.

According to the BBC, in a stunning departure from “don’t ask, don’t tell,” the US attempted to develop a Gay Bomb, a weapon which would go “poof” and turn opposing armies into sex-crazed homosexuals, unable to maintain discipline or morale:

The US military investigated building a “gay bomb”, which would make enemy soldiers “sexually irresistible” to each other, government papers say.

~~~

The plan for a so-called “love bomb” envisaged an aphrodisiac chemical that would provoke widespread homosexual behaviour among troops, causing what the military called a “distasteful but completely non-lethal” blow [ed: so to speak] to morale.

Not sure if that makes any sense. I mean, there’s a reason they’re called “gay,” right? Not because they’ve got poor morale. . . . but could preliminary testing explain the existence of this man?

According to the article, the Pentagon also explored a variant of the “smart bomb,” called the “fart bomb”:

In a variation on that idea, researchers pondered a “Who? Me?” bomb, which would simulate flatulence in enemy ranks.

Indeed, a “Who? Me?” device had been under consideration since 1945, the government papers say.

However, researchers concluded that the premise for such a device was fatally flawed because “people in many areas of the world do not find faecal odour offensive, since they smell it on a regular basis”.

Well, at least they resolved one timeless controversy: we can now say that many people do indeed enjoy smelling farts. Not only that we now know that some people smell like crap. Now if we could only stop Bush’s Iraq misstep from smelling like shit.