Bush praises Musharraf as someone who ‘believes in democracy’

November 21, 2007

The political crisis in Pakistan has been rather humiliating for the Bush White House. A president who claims to cherish a “freedom agenda” has been backing an undemocratic military dictatorship. For seven years, Bush simply misjudged Pervez Musharraf and his government. The U.S. president saw a democracy where there wasn’t one, and embraced a dictator — even inviting him to Camp David, a presidential perk reserved for close allies — who defied the U.S. and suspended Pakistan’s Constitution.

“He didn’t ask the hard questions, and frankly, neither did the people working for him,” said Husain Haqqani, an expert on Pakistan at Boston University who has advised two previous Pakistani prime ministers, Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto. “They bought the P.R. image of Musharraf as the reasonable general. Bush bought the line — hook, line and sinker.”

In the wake of the crisis, the Bush administration has been lost, criticizing “emergency rule,” but offering tepid support for Musharraf’s rule. The president has urged his friend to move towards elections, but has kept his condemnations to a minimum.

That is, until yesterday, when Bush went completely off-message and started praising Musharraf.

President Bush yesterday offered his strongest support of embattled Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, saying the general “hasn’t crossed the line” and “truly is somebody who believes in democracy.”

Bush spoke nearly three weeks after Musharraf declared emergency rule, sacked members of the Supreme Court and began a roundup of journalists, lawyers and human rights activists. Musharraf’s government yesterday released about 3,000 political prisoners, although 2,000 remain in custody, according to the Interior Ministry.

The comments, delivered in an interview with ABC News anchor Charles Gibson, contrasted with previous administration statements — including by Bush himself — expressing grave concern over Musharraf’s actions.

Musharraf “believes in democracy”? He “hasn’t crossed the line”? Bush is aware of current events, isn’t he?

Several outside analysts and a key Democratic lawmaker expressed incredulity over Bush’s comments and called them a sign of how personally invested the president has become in the U.S. relationship with Musharraf.

“What exactly would it take for the president to conclude Musharraf has crossed the line? Suspend the constitution? Impose emergency law? Beat and jail his political opponents and human rights activists?” asked Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a presidential candidate. “He’s already done all that. If the president sees Musharraf as a democrat, he must be wearing the same glasses he had on when he looked in Vladimir Putin’s soul.” […]

Tom Malinowski, Washington director of Human Rights Watch, said that “it’s hard to imagine how the administration will be able to achieve anything in Pakistan if the president is so disconnected from reality.”

“Almost everyone in Pakistan who believes in George Bush’s vision of democracy is in prison today,” Malinowski said. “Calling the man who put them in prison a great democrat will only discredit America among moderate Pakistanis and give Musharraf confidence that he can continue to defy the United States because Bush will forgive anything he does.”

If there’s a coherent approach to Bush’s thinking, it’s hiding well.

“They bought the P.R. image of Musharraf as the reasonable general. Bush bought the line — hook, line and sinker.”

Must be all those Brooks Brother suits our tax money has purchased for Musharraf…

  • This is feeding my paranoia. If what Musharraf has done in Pakistan doesn’t “cross the line,” then Bush won’t be “crossing the line” next year when he shuts down the media and cancels the elections because he sees his looming loss of power as a national emergency. After all, he will only be doing what is necessary to preserve democracy.

    Where did I put my Reynolds wrap?

  • President Bush lives down a rabbit hole. It’s too bad he’s been dragging us into it for far too long now. Whim and caprice abound – propaganda assails humanity! This presidency has been a waste of our precious time! -Kevo

  • Oh, come on – even Bush doesn’t believe in democracy, so if he thinks Musharraf does, it must be the Bush version, which is more autocratic by the day.

    Maybe one needs character, or must be familiar with what “good” character is, in order to be able to judge whether others have it; looking at those who have been, and are, part of the Bush administration, it is clear that they are as devoid of character as Bush is. It also explains why so many of those in positions of leadership in other countries, whom he has deemed worthy of our trust, are – at a minimum – suspect.

    You know things are not good when almost everything Bush does or says makes you want to say, “Are you f’ing kidding me?”

    348 days to election day.

  • It isn’t so much that Bu$h is praising the Pakistani tinpot tyrant, as he’s praising the “model of democracy” employed by that tinpot tyrant. We’ve already seen inklings of it in this country, such as:

    Having attendees arrested at presidential events because of a t-shirt or a bumper sticker.

    Repeated violations of the law—or have we forgotten so soon what FISA used to be? Habeus Corpus? Miranda? FOIA?

    Terminating Justice employees and stacking the deck with sychophantic bootlickers.

    Doing all of these things in the name of “fighting terrorism.”

    In the end, Musharraf is just another reason to label Bu$h as Worst President Ever. I think he’ll bear that title for quite a long while….

  • What exactly does it take for the people in Washington to realize they are dealing with a fucking idiot????? Worst, dumbest, most incompetent, least intelligent President ever, and the poster by for a constitutional amendment that relatives of Presidents into the 10th generation are barred from running for the office. If anyone needed proof of why the founders didn’t want a hereditary monarchy, here it is.

  • Rest assured everyone, “The President shall lead the activities of the Federal Government for ensuring constitutional government.”

    Musharraf is practicing the Bush Model of democracy.

  • Bush has a limited vocabulary so words must have a certain elasticity to them. Consider that the definition of privacy in Bush world. It means the old definition of privacy and its opposite, depending upon context and need. Democracy is just being treated with the same expansive ingenuity.

  • As Bush loses more and more of his inner circle and former circle members start releasing their tell all books that verify what we already knew about the sordid ways of this White House, Bush is circling the wagons around the shrinking coterie of people with whom he still feels a sense of loyalty from.

    For Bush and Musharraf, democracy is forcefully getting an unruly populace in line to vote to validate what the leader says should be done. Their sense of democracy is not the Founding Father’s democracy.

  • “Worst, dumbest, most incompetent, least intelligent President ever..”
    Yes. Absolutely true.
    But I’m not getting too worked up over his public positions on this one at this time. When he speaks, he represents (for better or worse) the *position* of the United States. So, unless our government has determined that the prudent thing to do would be to advocate regime change in Pakistan, he really has no choice. I’m not sure I want us to advocate regime change in Pakistan right now, given the Taliban foothold there and the presence of the nukes.
    Is Pakistan a “mell of a hess” right now? Yes. Is that partly due to this administration’s policies over the past 7 years? YES.
    Maybe our government should just be treading lightly with official statements as things unfold.

  • Have not the May 15th Prophecy told you these things ?

    Do a Google search of the May 15th Prophecy and you will see the truth of what really going on.

  • Re #2:

    Unfortunately that was also the first thing to cross my mind as I was reading the story. No bar is too low for this president, no principle too sacred. I would not for a minute put it past Bush to do something like this. He has already defied the Constitution, the Congress, and the rule of law in many and myriad ways.

  • Dear Mr. Bush: Did Hitler cross the line? Did Stalin cross the line? Did Mussolini cross the line?

    Musharraf believes in democracy about as much as Bush believes in democracy: zero, zilch, not a droplet.

    Bush believes in stolen elections, rigged elections, hacked elections, Diebolded elections. If Bush had any respect for democracy, he never would have allowed his brother Jeb Bush, Florida Governor in 2000 and Katherine Harris, Florida Secretary of State in 2000 and a few of their thugs to throw off thousands and thousands of duly registered black voters off of the Florida election rolls on the absurd basis that their names resembled those of Texas felons…

  • Whatever their relationship, Bush doesn’t have the tact or diplomacy to deal with the situation. Opening his mouth only makes things worse. He’s an embarrassment to the nation and just won’t shut up. After Musharraf’s actions of arresting all dissenters and suspending the constitution how can Bush call this democracy. Why even go there? Why not just state we are in discussions with Pakistan to find out why Musharraf felt such actions were necessary and to find out when the rule of law will be re-established. We are talking with him to find out why the democratic process has been interrupted…what role the Taliban has played in his actions.

    So many ways Bush could have played this without making the idiotic statements supporting Musharraf’s actions. He’s an embarrassment making America’s reputation worse every time he opens his mouth.

    With the information now out about the outing of Plame as stated by the retired press secretary McCellum(sp?) and other revealed secrets that should make impeachment a necessity we might be able to rid ourselves of Cheney and Bush or at least curtail their pwer and influence. Press secretary says WH is corrupt to the bone. Thank you.

  • Okie, I agree. I had the same thought, if Bush, going off-message, says he doesn’t believe Musharraf crossed the line but his military coup is “democratic”, those things are perfectly acceptable in his mind for Bush to do to America.

    It’s hard to tell if this is Bush’s intention or ignorance. But he DID say it would be easier to govern if he were a dictator. And to prove it, he developed the “unitary executive”. Too often for my liking, Bush telegraphs his illegal intentions before he follows through, while we stand back and don’t take him seriously because we can’t believe it.

    There’s a mad-man in the White House.

  • I wonder if Bush has already designed for himself a nice, “general of banana republic” costume to start wearing the day after the supposed “elections”…

  • Every American should hang their head in shame that we keep in power a man this severely mentally retarded as President. Actually, that statement is degrading to the mentally impaired, because even if they don’t grasp abstract concepts like “freedom” and “democracy”, at least they stick with the tangible stuff they do know about.

    Bush doesn’t even have the smarts to keep his mouth shut about that, though! He can’t just say, “I like Mushie! Mushie likes candy, and I like candy too. Mushie is cool.” No no – words like “democracy”, “freedom”, “peace”, “security” sit in the bottom of his brain pan in the “things that are nice” area, and when Bush likes someone, he just scoops up a couple of words from the pan and out of his mouth they go. Musharraf is our pal, so of course he wants “democracy”, “freedom”, “racecars”, “decency”, “sunny days”, “peace”, “landing on carriers”, “justice”, “chocolate ice cream”, “spaceships”, and “dinosaurs”. He’s such a nice man! Just like the nice Donald Rumsfeld (“best defense secretary we’ve ever had”), and his nice pal Harriet Meirs (“most qualified for the Supreme Court”).

    Let’s face it – Bush’s brain has not developed to the point where words like “democracy”, “qualified”, or “best” have meanings!

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