Brendan Calling

Priceless

President Bush has a second career awaiting him as a comedian:

Condemning as unacceptable what he called Russia’s “bullying and intimidation,” President Bush on Friday said Russia must withdraw its troops from all of Georgian territory and said the United States would stand with Georgia in the conflict.

“Georgia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity must be respected,” he said.

It takes one to know one.

All of this would be a lot easier to take without laughing so hard that coffee shoots out my nose if Mr. Bush’s entire career, from his campaign in 2000, to his coronation via the Supreme Court, to his 2004 campaign, to the way he deals with dissent, to the politicization of the Department of Justice, has been NOTHING BUT BULLYING.

His protest about “Georgia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity” is also cute: this is the guy after all who pioneered “pre-emptive war” and “regime change”. Stamp your cloven hooves a little harder, Mr. Bush: perhaps someone will listen.

Mr. Bush said that the cold war was over and that Russia had damaged its credibility and standing in the international order. Russia now has to “put itself back on the path of responsible nations,” Mr. Bush said.

As we all know, responsible nations don’t invade other nations. Not in the 21st century they don’t.

Typically when he finds himself in a tight spot, the President reverts to his fake-cowboy-I’m-just-a-reglar-guy act.

After postponing a trip to his ranch in Texas by a day, Mr. Bush went to the headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency in Langley, Va., for a briefing on the situation in Georgia.

“Got a lot of folks, smart folks, analyzing the situation on the ground and, of course, briefing us on different possibilities that could develop in the area and the region,” he said…

I think we can safely say he’s in a tight spot.

It’s also nice to see the Secretary of Defense openly suggest that President Bush is an idiot:

“My guess is that everyone is going to be looking at Russia through a different set of lenses as we look ahead.”

Mr. Gates’s remarks, while critical of Mr. Putin, also included an implicit rebuke of any effort to base American policy solely on a perceived friendship within the Kremlin. At the Pentagon, Mr. Gates was asked whether he trusted Mr. Putin anymore, and he paused before responding.

“‘Anymore’ is an interesting add,” he said. “I have never believed that one should make national security policy on the basis of trust. I think you make national security policy based on interests and on realities.”

So much for those soulful eyes I guess.

I’ve had a lot of fun at Pretzeldent Bush’s expense with this post: it’s always great to see a royal asshole hoist on his own petard. But the fact is that we have no cards to play in this showdown with Russia, and the Russians know it:

A top Russian general said Friday that Poland’s agreement to accept a U.S. missile interceptor base exposes the ex-communist nation to attack, possibly by nuclear weapons, the Interfax news agency reported.

The statement by Gen. Anatoly Nogovitsyn is the strongest threat that Russia has issued against the plans to put missile defense elements in former Soviet satellite nations.
[snip]
“Poland, by deploying (the system) is exposing itself to a strike — 100 percent,” Nogovitsyn, the deputy chief of staff, was quoted as saying.

He added, in clear reference to the agreement, that Russia’s military doctrine sanctions the use of nuclear weapons “against the allies of countries having nuclear weapons if they in some way help them.” Nogovitsyn that would include elements of strategic deterrence systems, he said, according to Interfax.

At a news conference earlier Friday, Nogovitsyn had reiterated Russia’s frequently stated warning that placing missile-defense elements in Poland and the Czech Republic would bring an unspecified military response. But his subsequent reported statement substantially stepped up a war of words.

That’s right, they’re threatening to nuke Poland: so while I’m having fun at Bush’s expense, the situation is deadly serious. Still, it’s great to see Mr. Bush reduced to stamping his foot and throwing a temper tantrum. I always felt it would come to this eventually. Guess that’s what happens when you spend your presidency as a belligerent drunk surrounded by yes-men and crooks.

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