‘I think we’ve had a very great week this week’

June 3, 2007

We’ve reached an entertaining point in Bush’s presidency — normal weeks are now newsworthy.

For a lame duck, President Bush looked remarkably spry last week, announcing a series of policy initiatives that caught many in Washington off guard. […]

On Tuesday, Bush announced new sanctions against Sudan and a nominee for World Bank president who was quickly embraced by both parties and allies around the world.

On Wednesday, the president announced a summit with Russian President Vladimir V. Putin and an initiative that he said would double spending on AIDS prevention in Africa.

And on Thursday, Bush announced a new effort against global warming, saying he would lead a push to get the world’s largest emitters of greenhouse gases to commit to cutting back.

Even if we put aside the merit of these various proposals and nominations, in most presidencies, this would generally be characterized as a normal week. The White House talked up a few policy initiatives, engaged in a little foreign affairs, and offered a World Bank nominee. Seeing this, DC is suddenly caught “off guard.” The president now appears “remarkably spry.” Why? Because the Bush gang managed to go a few days without a colossal screw-up or major new scandal.

“I think we’ve had a very great week this week in announcing initiatives that the president has been building on over his time here at the White House,” spokesperson Dana Perino said Friday.

Talk about your soft bigotry of low expectations, Bush and his team now congratulate themselves for Basic Governing 101. It’s kind of sad, really.

“..he Bush gang managed to go a few days without a colossal screw-up or major new scandal.”
to be fair to the bushies (and i really hate to be!), this does qualify as news – unfortunately for the rest of us.

  • Because the Bush gang managed to go a few days without a colossal screw-up or major new scandal.

    If you don’t count nominating a dickhead Talevangical to be the next S.G.

    “I think we’ve had a very great week this week in announcing initiatives that the president has been building on over his time here at the White House,”

    Allow me to translate:

    1. The most you can expect out of the pResident is announcements. If he can get through a brief speech without fucking up we break out the champagne.

    2. Nothing happened to drown out his annoncement. People are so numb to the disaster that is Iraq it no longer serves as a significant distraction. Mad props to all the FoBs (Friends of Bush) for not getting caught with their pants down.

    3. Really, he’s been working on these announcements for a long time. In the White House. Which is why you haven’t heard of them before. It’s not like he made them up on the spur of the moment. Really.

    4. Ah, what do I care what you slobs think? His pet biographer will be able to pull this quote and replicate it through out the book so it looks like every week was a great week during the reign of King George The Magnificent.

    5. LegacyQuest (TM) Struggles On!

  • Someone needs to ask Puppy Chow (sorry, but I keep seeing “Purina” whenever I think of Perino) why in the F!!! it took almost 6 and a half months to build up to initiatives that were expected—6 and a half years ago. And no—thumping his chest and screaming “I’m the President!” does not qualify as an answer. 9/11 does not constitute an excuse; neither does Iraq (they are both predated by the ’01 inaugural).

    As for those few days without a screw-up? Hmmm…well, the Navy is shelling Somalia, they’re sabre-rattling off the Iranian coast with a full MEF strike group that’s accompanied by 2 carrier groups, there’s rumblings about a full-blown trade war with China, and now Russia’s pissed off at us over missles to the point that they’re developing “interceptor-proof” ICBMs. Not single-warhead units, but MIRVs.

    So—we’re lobbing naval artillery rounds at part of the global oil supply (just as gasoline prices were starting to come back down), trying to goad Iran into a hot war (when we don’t have the military ability to accomplish what we’re already mired down in), making the supreme effort to demolish the economy (take a guess at what happens if China simply stops shipping stuff to the US, calls in the massive amounts of US debt it owns, and dumps about a trillion dollars worth of valid foreign currencies into the marketplace), and working really, really hard at re-establishing the Cold War (while we’ve got NATO’s stripped-to-the-bone forces deployed in Afghanistan, doing what we should be doing)—all in one week. Sounds to me as if Bu$h is outdoing himself.

    Yep—it’s been a great week for the High Lord and Grand Poobah of Bu$hylvania….

  • I swear, if people have not been able to figure out by now that “announcing” something is not the same as actually doing it, they are deaf, dumb and blind. And by “people” I am not just talking about us regular folks, but about the media, which begin to swoon and get the vapors whenever Commander Codpiece does something like this.

    The question I always have about this kind of response is, “Why?” Why do the media think they have to be part of the PR campaign? Why do they think they have to help the president sell himself? Is there no flutter of responsibility to tell the people what a charlatan this man is? That over and over again he has made announcements and then, when he realizes there is actual work involved in making these things come to fruition, just kind of gives up and moves on to something more interesting?

    Really, he is like the person who is always announcing that he or she is going to quit smoking, or lose 20 pounds, or look for a better job – these things don’t just happen when we decide this is what we want, but that seems to be the Bush Plan on just about everything.

  • What?
    No mention that the Dims caved on Iraq?

    Oh wait…
    That was last week…

    By the way I really did quit the “Democrat” party after their surrender to Bush and his terms and conditions.

    I am an independent again.
    Yes… it really does feel good.

    The only way I will return is if it looks like my vote is needed to choose Obama over Hillary.

    But I expect that by the time the primaries get to my state… Hillary will be the Dims choice.

    And why not?
    Can you think of a more hate-able candidate the Dims could run? Heck, she even tops a Gallic-nosed Kerry in spandex…

  • Great week?

    06/03/07 6
    06/02/07 8
    06/01/07 2
    05/31/07 3
    05/30/07 4
    05/29/07 4
    05/28/07 9

    Now that we’re apparently willing to share the blame for what began as the Bush-Cheney war-quagmire, Bush is pleased to allow a surge in U.S. deaths. Before the Democrats won Congress back the rate was 2.1 per diem. Now it’s more than double that, 5.1 to be exact.

  • Sad? Yes!
    Surprising? NO!!
    The maths seem right for a guy like your preznit asshole. After so many years of total fuck-ups someone told that idiot that if he’d be willing to tone down for the last 2-3 months of his presidency that history would be kinder to him .. maybe history would let him have that legacy of his …
    You know what?! From the land of last minute crammers and cliff noters it might just fly …. there is no one on earth stupider than an american (not you … the other guy). It will all be OK … just wait for the movie to come out and it will ‘splain everything to you sparky! When you assholes (not you …the other guys) all wake up in the shower -14 years later- thinking it was just a dream you all might be right. Do not despair lil’ ones, Neo will make it go away!

  • When she says, “building on over his time in the White House”, I hope Ms. Perino is not referring to Bush’s new “Stop Global Warming, Y’all” initiative. Not unless ridiculing the concept in public, goosing suppression of data that supports it and screeching “junk scientists!!” at everybody who comes forward to say that it is real and it is happening qualifies as “building on” the issue.

    If we could have gotten him “building on” the Iraq war with the same degree of non-enthusiasm early on, perhaps it would never have happened. Of course, conserving by cutting back on conspicuous waste and reining in freewheeling polluters doesn’t offer the same level of instant gratification as letting slip the dogs of war, and getting ordinary folks blown to hamburger. In fact, the latter is so much fun that he’s forever looking for ways to expand it. What a ghoul.

  • Yes, the Bushmen may have had a great week, but they won’t be home free until they find their way out of that wet paper sack they’ve been in for the past 6+ years. -Kevo

  • Please, pretty please: a whole bunch of y’all are destroying a super-descriptive phrase.

    There aren’t very many “lame ducks” inside the Beltway.

    lame duck: noun an official (esp. the president) in the final period of office, after the election of a successor : as a lame duck, the president had nothing to lose by approving the deal | [as adj. ] a lame-duck governor. • an ineffectual or unsuccessful person or thing.

    – New Oxford American Dictionary

    Henceforth, the charge will not be phrase slaughter 2 but phrase assassination.

    And, no, the state (Vice-President “Les” Cheney) will not pay for an English instructor to defend you.

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