The names of fellow idiots that immediately come to mind are Dick Cheney and Sen. McCain. I'm sure there are at least one or two others. Sen. Lieverman, perhaps.

Superbly put, Kevin.

I'm somewhat curious to know what other people think will happen to Bush after he leaves office? I'm sure there'll be a slew of speeches to dead-enders/true believers but then what?

I refuse to spend any more mental bandwidth on the lier or stupid dichotomy for President 28%. Why not both? In any case, as you point out below, there's less than 300 days left in his misrule. Why not return the favor of his ignoring public opinion and ignore him to the maximum extent possible?

I'm expecting him to let us know that we're winning the war in Vietnam.

What's worse is that he thinks this nonsense is worth sending American boys and girls (and yes, some of these boys are just learning to shave,etc.) to their doom.

BTW, it isn't ballsy to lie if you've never faced any consequences for lying.

Who is George Bush?

My vote is a combination of a and b. I think that Bush himself may well be that ignorant but that elements of his administration clearly are not and are cynically trying to manipulate public opinion with this clearly absurd spin. Sadly, I just don't see the media stepping up to call him on his bullshit.

...but then what?

Senior statesman of the republican party? I wonder how long it will be before the ranch in Crawford goes on the market.

Sorry, but it's (b). He always uses the word "interesting" when he thinks his con is working.

What he was trying to say was that we're turning the corner on makin' progress and that the evil doers who attacked us on 9/11 can run but they can't hide because we won't be fooled again. You can't help but be shocked and/or awed.

All you Bush hating lefties are also hypocrites. You whine when the Iraqi government does nothing to control the militias then you whine when they do.

The Sadarists have to be controlled and if the Iraqi's take them down a couple notches militarily that is good thing.It weakens them both militarily and politically. Which could be construed as a good thing for us.

Whether Bush believes it or not, I don't think he personally gives a rats ass one way or another. It isn't going to change his intention to wash his hands of Iraq in 10 months and swagger toward his next venture - also guaranteed to fail.

Reconciliation was so . . .last month. Bush correctly recognized the fact that it wasn't working. The CINC knows that strategies must change, and so dropping bombs on your foreign political foes is now the (or rather another) defining moment. It's called exporting democracy, doing what we have to do to support the Iran-allied "government" in Baghdad.

I'm somewhat curious to know what other people think will happen to Bush after he leaves office?

I had posited this some time ago along the same lines. Absent Reagan, our current crop of ex-presidents went on to achieve some semblance of fame/fortune/respect: Nixon (despite all his faults) eventually became respected for his foreign policy advice and wrote several books on same; Carter has been recognized by many people as having the most "successful" ex-presidency in history; Bush 41 is raking it in at Carlyle, and Clinton has his foundation and other stuff. Can anyone possibly imagine people (other than the Newsmax fundraisers) buying a book "by" Bush 43, or hiring him for his expertise?

Even with a 2.0 GPA from Yale, never mind the Harvard MBA, he does not seem to be that unintelligent as to justify the correctness of (a). Afterall, he won the Presidency twice.

I go with (b), as time and again our electorate has proved to be clueless in electing him twice.

A.

Concerned Readers who have asked what Bush does next:

He will tend to his presidential library and read for the first time the two books in it-The Pet Goat and Clearing Brush for Pleasure and Profit.

It is beyond frustrating. The man cannot comprehend Clue Jr. Pop-up books scare him, then he laughs about it. He makes explosion noises while romping around the back stairs of the White House. Senility has got to make him more presidential some day soon.

Easily the biggest dunderhead ever to occupy a position of power anywhere. I think worst president in history is too restrictive of a label these days.

Bush says what he is told to say. He neither knows nor cares whether it is true or not. He is just a spokesmodel.

I recall a TV commercial for some over-the-counter medication that featured a popular actor from the daytime soap opera All My Children. At the beginning of the commercial, as a disclaimer prefacing his pitch for the product, he would say "I'm not a doctor, I just play one on TV."

A similar disclaimer applies to Bush. He's just a shill. He's not a president, he just plays one on TV.

'Prime Minister Maliki's bold decision - and it was a bold decision - to go after the illegal groups in Basra shows his leadership and his commitment to enforce the law in an even-handed manner,' Bush said.

The bold remark by the president disturbed me more.

I vote for C:

Bush knows it's crap but also knows that he has the full support of Fox News, 98% of talk radio and most of the rest of the press. Regardless of what he says - or what's true - he can count on half of the country buying it.

I'm somewhat curious to know what other people think will happen to Bush after he leaves office?

I've thought all along that GWB is on his way to making a killing on the motivational-speaker circuit after he leaves the White House. The problem with America isn't so much jokers like Bush spouting bullshit as it is the multitudes of people willing to pay good money to listen to it...

Captain Dubya also once expressed an interest in being the commissioner of baseball. It wouldn't surprise me if that came to pass, for few groups of people can match the baseball owners for their collective stupidity.

It's (b). Remember, most people don't follow the news very closely, and for the average news skimmer it won't be obvious that President Bush is pulling a con. So, yes, he thinks a large number of people will buy it, and I think he's right.

I think President Bush does believe most of what he says about Iraq at the time he says it, and also that he does not waste time on reflecting about things he has said in the past that turned out to be wrong later.

However, additional to this is the fact that Bush has a highly developed sense of the importance of message discipline. This importance is greatest in campaign politics, the core of Bush's political identity. Message discipline requires a degree of simplicity in the message, and any accurate summary of the state of Iraqi politics could not be simple. Given the choice between being accurate and maintaining his consistent message, Bush has almost always chosen the latter. If he did have doubts about this latest "defining moment" in the history of Iraq, he would be led by his instinct for message discipline to refrain from expressing them.

Incidentally, the phrase "defining moment" is used a lot by people in politics these days. I have no idea what this phrase means, or if anyone else does, and rather think it is used so often because people have come to regard "defining" as a synonym of "really important."

He's not a president, he just plays one on TV.

I've been telling students for eight years -- "Remember, Jared doesn't own Subway. He doesn't even run a Subway."

Kevin may be right, but a President must be careful in his public statements. Bush is supporting our ally al Malaki. It would not be appropriate for a President to make a statement undercutting an ally at a time like this.

I vote C, GwB doesn't care what voters think because they are irrelevant to him. This announcement is just a slightly longer version of Dick's So?
He knows the Congress won't touch him and there's no chance Petraeus is in the process of revising his testimony to account for Basra. You'll note that he doesn't mention the US led attack on Sadr City.

Bush is too busy being a leader to handle everything. He delegates thinking.

I am thinking that GWB could become Secretary General of the UN. Or he could start a career in movies, produce Chuck Norris flicks, something.

I would have to go with delusional. "Ballsy" is not an appellation I apply to draft dodgers.

I don't know about that baseball commissioner thing, Sardonicus. Last time Bush tried to involve himself in MLB the owners had enough sense to require a minder for him. Consequently, Richard Rainwater arranged for Rusty Rose to ride herd on Bush so that no real decisions could be made without Rose's approval. Only then would the owners agree to the sale of the franchise to Bush and company..

The question was: "which is worse?, A, or B". It seems Kevin and commenters are answering: "which is reality?, A, or B".

On the question in Kevin's post, I'd say A is worse, for all of us, because discounting the intelligence of the American public would at least have the benefit of showing some political savvy, which should be a desirable trait in a president.

On the question of what's reality? I think I have to go with B, for the same reason. He's just evil. Not an idiot.

I coulda sworn Rusty Rose was the name of the hooker in Midland that young George caught the clap from...

I coulda sworn Rusty Rose was the name of the hooker in Midland that young George caught the clap from...

Yes -- she of "Rusty Roes Rarras" fame. Her breakout film.

Heh, heh... breakout. I slay me.

Heh, heh... breakout. I slay me.

Me too, junie.

The answer is (b). Bush knows enough to know that his job is basically lying to people, and he knows enough to know what a lot of the lies are. He's not just an innocent guy, he is an immoral man with a carefully crafted image-- he's kind of like Coke or Pepsi, a world-renowned product with a lot of money riding on his reception. I believe that there are, or have been, some details he's been murky on, and therefore hasn't known how honest he's been when he's had to speak on them. But I think in this case it's probably the former.

By the way, how many times has Bush put pressure on the Iraqis, claiming that it was their fault for "not stepping up" when things weren't improving in Iraq, and it looked doubtful as to whether they would? It really casts his shadow on his pose today as the guy "knowing all along" that everything was going to turn out okay with the Iraqi's selfg-government.

By those remarks, he lost credibility as the stolid cheerleader on that question. He showed that, even as informed as he's supposed to be, even he (that is, his advisors, and him) doubted the Iraqis' chances for success enough to start publicly shifting the blame for disaster to them.

It really casts his shadow on his pose today as the guy "knowing all along" that everything was going to turn out okay with the Iraqi's selfg-government.

Should have been "casts a shadow"-- and I say once again-- dang keyboard.

>"there's less than 300 days left in his misrule."

Bush II can do a lot more damage in those 300-odd days... assuming he (or his masters) has any intent of relinquishing power.

Don't be fooled, this is not a quotation: Let me see if I can use HTML mark-up language, 'cos I thought that didn't work.

Yes, well regarding someone's wondering about Bush's future, I feel pretty certain he will join the board of Halliburton. He may even become their CEO.

George W. Bush's future: tens of millions of dollars, even more than Cheney ever made, as Bush collects his deferred payments / "payoffs" from all of the war lords he's enriched.

George W. Bush never met a massacre, a mass murder, or other human tragedy that he didn't like as long as it helped him to line his own pockets. Just like all of the other degraded swine in the Bush family.

Hurray for evenhandedness! Stuff some cotton in his cheeks, shave off the stubble, fill out the mustache, slap on a fedora, and have him fire a rifle from his hip on the palace balcony.

This is yet another reminder of the weakness of the Bush-McCain approach to national security and foreign policy. TPM and Acropolis Review note this clearly. http://acropolisreview.blogspot.com/2008/03/john-mccains-iraq-war-five-year.html

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/184135.php

I'd have to go with a divided answer. For Bush, it's "A". But for Cheney, it's "B". And Cheney knows that Bush is stupid enough to believe anything.

All you Bush hating lefties ...

Catch up to current events, man. Hating Bush isn't just for lefties any more. We were just a lot more clued in than the others.

At times like this it would be nice if the U.S. had a two-party system. It would be even nicer if the Bush policy had collapsed during a hotly-contested Presidential campaign, because in that case the candidates of the opposing party could loudly point out that the "defining moment", like the rest of Bush's Iraq policy, has been a disaster. But if wishes were horses, beggars would ride.

empty barrels make the most noise

A perfect explanation for Bush's ever dumber assessments of Iraq.

Double-barreled MHR.

Swan at 2:59 PM:

Bingo! Swan, please stay in closer contact w/ Mr Drum so's he can steal your insight when he's tempted to post rather inane dichotomies like this one, which in the end enables the venal BushCo project. Mr. Drum, please attend to Mr. Swan here. Thank you.

I'll go with (b), but the title of you post is what's most appropriate.

Which is worse? It's probably worse if Bush knows what he's doing than if he has no idea. If he has no idea he can make mistakes and fail at being a henchman. If he knows what's going on, he can cover his tracks better and bring less negative public opinion on himself and by extension, the GOP. There is only so much public unhappiness they can stand, since priority number 1 is maintaining power.

Reading today that the Brits are going to delay their planned withdrawal from Basra, i'm thinking this was planned to get Brit P.M. Brown to do just this. There were never enough Brit troops in the Basra area to make a serious challenge to the Shia militias, so delaying their withdrawal will accomplish exactly nothing. All of this points out how disjointed and idiotic this whole fiasco was and continues to be. By delaying troop withdrawals Brown has tied himself to the Bush/Cheney grand scheme, something that didn't work out too well for Tony Blair.

When military conflicts do not end in unconditional defeat, citizens reject collective guilt for the crimes committed not only in their name, but with their tacit complicity. Few Americans have refused to pay taxes or done anything to disrupt the war crimes effort of their country. Few have been arrested for protesting the war. Even though most Americans have not dropped any bombs, snipered any old ladies or tortured innocent civilians, all of these things were paid for by them and ordered by leaders constitutionally under their control. Germans and Japanese were punished for obeying political leaders who were not constitutionally under their control. Americans cannot use their uninvolvement in the political process to escape guilt for what their nation has done.

Americans are due collective punishment. The coming economic penalty for the invasion and occupation of Iraq will not be enough to prevent the next war crime calamity. Americans did not suffer adequately for the crimes committed in Vietnam to prevent Iraq and will not suffer adequately for the crimes committed in Iraq to prevent the next improper use of their power. Unless the rest of the world imposes some harsh penalty on the US, like a dollar/gallon gasoline Iraq War Crime Tax, Americans will not only escape punishment, but will deny they deserve any such punishment.

I voted against W. Bush, but I have not risked arrest for protesting against his wars or trying to stop their prosecution. Americans deserve collective pushishment for the crimes of our democratically elected leadership. Since we as a nation are incapable of punishing our war crime leaders, we as a nation deserve collective punishment. We own the nation, its wars and our guilt. We are not anonymous share holders able to avoid liability for the crimes committed by CFO's. We are citizens who have allowed our leadership, military and spooks to commit war crimes without fear of punishment. For that we deserve punishement.

Deacon Zirkel has taken ownership of the war by allowing himself to be arrested for protesting against it. Few Americans risk arrest or other puhishment for protesting the war, withholding their income taxes or for obstructing its prosecution. Few Americans own up to their responsibility and tacitly continue to support the war crimes of their leadership by going to work, paying taxes and denying any responsibility for their ownership of it.