perfidy

If the goal was to make the president appear presidential, meaning he is in charge, has a plan, knows what to do, etc. I think the goal was not met. He didn't appear engaged and dodged even simple-to-answer questions profoundly artlessly. I think the whole shebang was a bad idea for the Bush reelection campaign.

My take. Y'all's free to disagree.

Dude, he's TOTALLY looking forward to answering those commission questions. He doesn't need Dick Cheney, he can quit Dick Cheney anytime he wants, he doesn't have a problem with Dick Cheney.

BTW (small site-pimp), I tried real-time commentary myself. My brain does not thank me.

I live with a Senate staffer [D] and a former radio producer for Ollie North. We also had another guest who is an attorney in private practice. Tonight we watched the end of the speech and the question period. It was interesting.

Some comments:
1) Both my roommates think Bush isn't so bad speaking extemporaneously. He can be very effective and powerful and full of emotion sometimes. His handlers should give him a little more slack to speak to the press. No one said anything about a moire pattern to the tie. Perhaps our TV sucks and just showed it as a muddy grey.

2) As a former parliamentary debater, I think that Bush is still a terrible speaker, but better than he was during the 2000 election. The radio producer finally pinned down what was nagging him all these years about Dubya. The man does not have good diction. He slurs his words together and that doesn't seem very presidential.

My favorite moment was the long pause Dubya had after the first question. He answered it with a brief statement of 6 words, and then an uncomfortable pause while he formulated his thoughts. I think he shouldn't have spoken the first statement so quickly with a dead silence before his next comment. For a serious and silent minute, I thought all he was going to say in response to the question is "I think the analogy is false."

3) I think Bush is still an inflexible speaker. He has these pat phrases in his mental library but he has a hard time using them correctly while at the podium, or else he overuses them. For instance his use of the phrase "loved one." Dubya lacks the mental agility to turn it into a plural when appropriate. A couple of times he left it singular and it just sounded odd, and he couldn't hear himself to correct it. Nevermind that he suddenly gave Rumsfeld a new job tonight. [Funny story, I was cooking in the kitchen when I heard 'Sec'y of State Rumsfeld.' I come running out and ask if we missed Powell's resignation by tuning in a few minutes late.]

4) I found some of Dubya's remarks to be a defense against accusations of racism, which is fine, but it was his word-selection that creeped me out.

"Some of the debate really centers around the fact that people don't believe Iraq can be free; that if you're Muslim, or perhaps brown-skinned, you can't be self-governing or free. I'd strongly disagree with that."

Wow. 'brown-skinned.' yep. That's right. That's what he said. Bush Sr. once referred to Jeb's kids and the 'little brown ones,' or something similar. That's the kind of home in which Dubya was raised, one where it's acceptable to say that sort of thing. Doesn't he know that it's okay to think it, but not actually say it <i>out loud?,</i>

While he may 'strongly disagree with that [assertion],' I'm a little disturbed that Dubya thinks about foreign policy issues in terms of "xyz-skinned" anything. Was he trying to speak to that part of the electorate that does?

5) I was dismayed to hear Dubya say that these Muslims are after Jews and Christians. What about the Buddhists, Animists, and New Age Spiritualists out there? Doesn't he think that all religions of the world are at risk here? Or is he trying to get his hardcore right-wing Christian support aligned with American Jews, who have been traditionally Democrats? hmm....

6) We all thought Ed Chen, of the LA Times, had a poorly formed question, designed to trip up the president. We were sorely disappointed that Dubya didn't flub it. It was a good question, but Ed Chen does better in print. Was he reading a question someone handed to him? I just couldn't tell. The question makes sense once I read the transcript, but our at home audience was kind of confused.

7) When Dubya said the "Greater Middle East Reform Initiative" all of us looked at each other and said, what is that? We figured there's going to be a lot of ppl awake tonight, writing up this initiative.

8) This kills me. "We have an obligation to help feed the hungry. I think the American people find it interesting that we're providing food for the North Korea people who starve."

DPRK is one of the few places where we are still fighting the Cold War. I had to explain to my roommates that the last time I checked only the AFSC was US organization allowed to give humanitarian aid to DPRK. The last AFSC presentation I heard in 1996, it was a very small sum. If you visit the AFSC website now, it's substantially more than before. IIRC, it was $50K in '96.

DPRK has been starving for a long time. Everyone forgets that. They have an entire generation of chronically malnourished children in school. Well, shoot, Mr. President. We should have been trying to feed them all along, but I'll spare you my radical liberal plan for today.

My big picture thought is lost to me. It's late. I'm going to sleep. So pardon if some of the commentary rambles, doesn't quite meet a grade A intellectual standard, or has typos.

I have a serious">http://mithras.blogs.com/blog/2004/04/what_is_the_pre.html]serious question. Does anyone else think that the President is overly medicated?

You'd think, that as president, he'd access to the really good, pure quill stuff...

He's on Ibogaine, just like Ed Muskie was!

oh... yeah, everyone at the house thought that he could use a haircut.

Mapgirl, I didn't watch the President's speechifying, but I thought I'd comment on your observations anyway:

I think the Muslims do have it in for Jews (certainly) and Christians a little more than the other faiths you mention. The "people of the book" line is really spinning a rather ugly bigotry. In a sense, Jews and Christians are more heretics than pagans, and heretics always get more grief than outright unbelievers.

As far as the racism angle, a lot of liberal commentary comes off as condescending at a minimum, if not outright racist. "Those people" are not capable of democracy. They are not even allowed to own their own actions - their hatred of us, their attacks on us can't be their own responsibility - it is only a reaction to what *we* do. That kind of denies them status as independent moral actors, and makes them a bit less than fully human. That has always irritated me. We should at the very least grant them the courtesy of recognizing that they can make their own decisions. (Before we kill them, of course.)

I think you're right also about his speaking ability. Those who meet him in person say that he is an engaging and effective speaker - one on one. His minders are perhaps a little too scared of his lack of oratorical skill.

"Those people" are not capable of democracy. They are not even allowed to own their own actions - their hatred of us, their attacks on us can't be their own responsibility - it is only a reaction to what *we* do. That kind of denies them status as independent moral actors, and makes them a bit less than fully human.

This is a bit of spin. I think few liberals argue that Muslims are "not capable" of democracy. (That's more accurately a characterization of rightwing views that Muslims are "savages" who "only understand force.") What liberals do say is that democracy and constitutionalism are cultural values that cannot just spring up overnight in cultures that don't already value them. They especially cannot be quickly imposed from without.

Second, it's cartoonish to say liberals think terrorism is only "a reaction to what *we* do." Again, this is about understanding others' cultures and what we risk and can possibly achieve in engaging those cultures. America has a track record of not understanding foreign cultures, and getting very unexpected consequences from our policies as a result, of which Iraq is only the most recent example. This is not an argument excusing people's actions. It is an argument that we need better information to predict what people's actions are going to be, given their cultural beliefs and economic situations.

I've done s'more thinking. I kept "seeing" Dan Quayle last night. The verbal fumbling. The completely incoherent sentences. The deer in the headlights look. It is one thing to be a poor public speaker, but Mr. Bush should have achieved even an acceptable mediocrity by now. His performance -- and that's the right word, all this was was political theater -- was painful to watch. And embarrassing.

The president of the free world should be able to answer simple questions. He didn't appear to have been coached at all. I just cannot believe his team didn't walk him repeatedly through the whole exercise. For example, the Bush/Cheney testimony question was a freaking softball and one he utterly, completely, totally blew. It was weird watching him stare blankly when trying to respond to the question about "mistakes." I really don't know what he was trying to do. He wasn't evasive. He wasn't dismissive. He just ... mumbled.

I think he did great damage to his reelection effort. A 20 minute press conference held off prime time could have worked in his favor. This was awful.

As usual, I'm going to take the middle ground. Mithras has done a great job of summing up the reasonable and intelligent arguments on the liberal side of the equation, with which I agree. My post yesterday on "hearts and minds" was a far longer-winded attempt to say the same thing. Nice work, Mithras. You showed me up.

Buckethead, you are right enough that the loony left condescend without end, but the same can just as easily be said about the right on many issues. Take, for example, John Derbyshire's schoolboy glee over the word "buggery," in which his magazine the National Review eggs him on. To reduce the lives, experiences, and existence of homosexual people to "buggery" is every bit as condescending-- and even more crass-- than puling about how "those people" nee their hands held to achieve democracy.

Turns out Josh Marshall noticed the "must-call" too...

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Mithras: nice comments. I recall saying to a roommate that the Neo-cons got it all wrong. You can't push democracy as a concept from the top down. You have to build social institutions from the bottom up and then use those institutions to inspire democracy throughout the culture. These people don't run their families, classrooms, or businesses with democracy. I'm not sure where it's going to get learned at the rate we're going and the manner in which this is being implemented. These Neo-cons need a class in Managing Organizational Change. They're not inspiring the Iraqi everyman here to be a democratic participant. But I'm not sure what the carrot is.

Another interesting comment is that our houseguest is from Florida. He said that after a natural disaster in the US, the National Guard is out on every corner in pairs. He thinks we're under-manned out there. The images we see are of a bunch of guys on a Humvee for a square mile, instead of on every corner in Iraq.

It is in organizations like the Rotarians, PTAs, etc. that we really learn the habits of democracy.

I know this comment is 4 days late, but I've been thinking about this. It is in organizations like Rotarians and PTA where ppl learn democracy. Why? Because they tend to use rules of order to structure their debates. Why do rules of order exist? According to Roberts, which is the only set of rules I've ever used in formal parliamentary debates, the rules exist to protect the minority to ensure a dissenting voice is heard. So while B may think he's being somewhat facetious. I think he's being somewhat real in that statement. Democracy is learned and has to be 'practiced' so to speak. A parliamentarian is not a dictator. If (s)he is, the parliament would remove him/her.

I was not being facetious at all. That fact is why it is nearly impossible to impose democracy from the top down, and why nations that get north of about $9,000 per capita GPD tend to go democratic automatically. Because the habits that allow a people to become moderately prosperous (which can only happen if there is order, and a fair degree of rule of law) - learning to trust, associate, cooperate, etc - are the same habits that are essential to a healthy democracy, and are the necessary preconditions for it. Tocqueville commented extensively on the habits of Americans to form civic associations. We are schooled in these things before ever we vote. It is easier to get people to work for their own good, making money than it is to get them to trust that someone in power will work for them. But once they've learned, they can understand how power can work in a democratic soceity.

How many more heads of Americans have to come off before we realize that Arabs are savages. The ones who have moved to the US are OK, however, the Arab's biggest fear is that our Western influence will help empower women in the Arab world, the they won't be able to hack them to pieces (legally) for crossing the street alone. They truly are bloodthirsty. Typical day in Saudia Arabia: Hey! Want to play dominoes or chop somebody's head off? Oh' the head, definitely. Get me my good sword. That makes 9 this week. There are people in the world who need to be oppressed. Muslims are at the top of the list. The West is not harming the Muslim world. Unless of course all of the foreign aid we're giving them is pissing them off. Bunch of goat fuckers who don't have the guts to stand up for what's right. Our hero is Babe Ruth. Theirs is a mass murderer named Osam Bin Laden. And there's 10,000 more just like him in Saudi Arabia alone. We need to nuke Riyahd, Mecca, Qom and Tehran. Then we'll be safe. Real soldiers put on uniforms and don't shield themselves with babies, and transport arms with ambulances. Allah help you when we begin to go after you on your terms. You are not warriors, there may be 72 vrigins waiting for you in heaven and when you get there they're going to ask you, "What happened to your dick?"