Tuesday, June 27, 2006

CYA

The book's opening anecdote tells of an unnamed CIA briefer who flew to Bush's Texas ranch during the scary summer of 2001, amid a flurry of reports of a pending al-Qaeda attack, to call the president's attention personally to the now-famous Aug. 6, 2001, memo titled "Bin Ladin Determined to Strike in US." Bush reportedly heard the briefer out and replied: "All right. You've covered your ass, now."

-- From "The Shadow War, In a Surprising New Light," a review of Ron Suskind's The One Percent Doctrine by Barton Gellman, in the Washington Post

We are not (yet) privileged to know what happened immediately after this demonstration of bovine stupidity and bullying churlishness toward the hired help -- so utterly in keeping with what we already know of Bush's lifelong sense of patrician entitlement and contempt (born of incapacity) for hard mental labor. The mind's eye can't help but conjure up that smirk, that shoulder-shaking little chortle, the abruptly turned back, the quick return to the game of pool that the hapless briefer had so rudely interrupted with his importuning that the President of the United States, deep in the cloudy comfort of his Crawford vacation, actually move himself to fulfill the duties he had been elected appointed to perform.

It's also not particularly difficult to imagine a CIA briefer leaving the scene of his humiliation, vowing to bring down the revoltingly stupid little bully-boy by whatever means presented themselves. Ron Suskind has provided an admirable opportunity.

Bush's pissy insult stands like the pile of puppy-shit on the living-room carpet in which History will rub his stubby little nose for a thousand thousand years. In the fullness of time, "All right. You've covered your ass, now," will be branded on his forehead, and on the forehead of every vizier, camp follower and sycophant that hitched a wagon to his blank, moribund, lightless star.

14 comments:

XTCfan said...

In the fullness of time, "All right. You've covered your ass, now," will be branded on his forehead...

If there were justice in the world. But there isn't.

I wish there was. (But if there were, he never would have been president, right?)

Bobby Lightfoot said...

I think it's never too late to understand and apply the very constant and very human concept of Projection.

Y'all foller?

Bush is all the time projecting.

I think it's the secret of the guy. Not that we're particularly curious.

Anonymous said...

Imagine as many alternate universes as it would take for every Bush supporter-- not the moguls or the Fighting Keyboarders, but the Rotarians and water-cooler wags and flag bumper sticker patriots-- to have that famous opportunity to have a couple cold ones with Bush.

But also imagine that he wasn't the president, but someone they'd never heard of before the pitchers started coming.

Would the widely reported Bush "charm" work at all, or would he just get his ass kicked every time?

Jeremy said...

If there were justice in the world. But there isn't.

And if there were space on the forehead. Maybe just "ass, now" would fit?

Anonymous said...

"...actually move himself to fulfill the duties he had been elected to perform."


I just want to differ with the elected part...minor quibble...but it was the start to all this mess we find ourselves in...

Michael Bains said...

That was a pretty good review. I think you really nailed the portion of it that best highlights how the vainglorious, but intelligent, crimimals in this Admin are able to so easily wag this particular presidential dog.

I'm finding myself wanting to buy this book. Thanks.

Doc Nebula said...

I don't know. If we view that little exchange through the "9/11 was an inside job and the goverment allowed it to happen" prism, it looks very different... like Bush, with a cynical wink, let some up and comer take a meeting with him that would provide necessary political insulation after everything came down.

On the other hand, while I personally am convinced our government -- well, our masters, anyway -- conspired in 9/11, I'm not even remotely as certain that Bush was kept in the loop on that. Given that his father spent the night of 9/10 with Cheney in the Oval Office, I'm fairly sure the two of them were in on it... but why tell Junior? He's just the suit they put in front of the TV; he'd be better off not actually knowing anything.

In that case, yeah, he's an idiot and a fool. But we've always known that.

Boldly Serving Up Wheat Grass said...

Ironically, Dubya was just covering his own ass by making that remark. The key here is that the warning came in the form of a memo. But everyone knows that the man can't read. He's still working on The Pet Goat -- that book he was struggling through when the planes hit.

Anonymous said...

He's such a snotty, miserable little creep.

The Heretik had a video up awhile back of all these clips of "Bush's Greatest Moments." And there was one, where he was sitting, waiting to go on Letterman before the cameras started to roll (well, before *all* of them started to roll, anyway) -- and there were all these people milling around, getting ready for the show. And this one woman walked and stopped in front of Bush for a second to do something -- and he took his eye glasses off, pulled on her shirt tail and cleaned his glasses with it.

Man. I can't stand that guy.

Anonymous said...

Hmmmm...

Truman: "The buck stops here."

FDR: "We have nothing to fear, but fear itself."

JFK: "Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country."

W: "All right. You've covered your ass, now."

Anonymous said...

Well i wish George W would cover his ass. Oh sorry - that's his face.

H. Rumbold, Master Barber said...

With today's SCOTUS decision on Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, one can only wonder whether Rove plans the Reichstag fire for before or after the midterm elections. By the way, the architect of the legal framework behind all this is Cheney's Chief of Staff David Addington. Never heard of him? Go read the New Yorker profile. Even better, get your mitts on the print edition for the Edward Sorel illustration of Addingtom putting the Constitution through a shredder with Cheney and Bush looking on.

H. Rumbold, Master Barber

Anonymous said...

I have spoken with someone who worked directly with the man in Texas' Governor's mansion, and I'm told he "really is as clueless as he seems."

jcfkuq: The sound of black boots, coming to get you.

Anonymous said...

Hey, the whole right wing lives by projection, and several other "infantile defenses". (Yeah, that's what the shrinks call it.) Oh yeah, right, it's them "libruls" who are trying to destroy America, disrespecting the troops, and so on. Riigght... while the GOP go down the list of everything that made America great, methodically destroying and looting each of them.... :-(