bush embiggens himself

* amandagon re the aug 6 pdb cya comment from suskind:

"My take on it is the same as Avedon’s—this is why 9/11 conspiracy theories are a bit silly. It doesn’t matter if BushCo actively caused the events of that day to happen, which I doubt. All that really matters is we have proof that they were forewarned and they didn’t care. This jibes well with BushCo’s general approach to being warned about impending death and destruction they have the power to avoid or minimize. They do nothing and then get opportunistic as soon as the disaster has happened. Two major American cities have seen outrageous amounts of death and destruction on their watch and in both cases, BushCo was criminally negligent in their unwillingness to lift a finger to prevent the destruction.

I firmly believe that the reason that BushCo actively refuses to prevent or minimize destruction is they are ideologically opposed to doing so. The problem is that in a peaceful, non-destructive environment, the opportunities to make an enormous profit in no time are limited basically to being clever and starting a business that makes a lot of money from your ingenuity. Looking at the collective brain power of BushCo, it’s clear that this is not an option for them or their friends. But opportunities abound for the well-connected war profiteer if there’s plenty of death and destruction around, and war profiteers are who we have as leaders.

But more than that, it’s an important facet of neocon ideology to believe that destruction is a good thing for the economy. It does well to remember that it’s an article of faith amongst the wingnutteria that FDR didn’t save us from the Great Depression; Hitler did. In fact, the fetishistic regard for the theory that WWII was the source of American’s economic growth can’t be overrated in importance to holding together the conservative worldview.

Without this theory, they’d have to admit what any fool can see, which is the prosperity of the 50s came from a series of government programs designed to create a huge middle class(an issue that will hopefully start receiving attention again)—programs that were reliant on high marginal tax rates. And admitting that high marginal tax rates are a good thing for the economy is just not possible, to the point where any other explanation, no matter how asinine, will do. Enter the importance of destruction, war, and fear as economic motivators into the conversation.

Add a dash of Cold War military fetishization and the build-up of a military industrial complex that is enormous and needs to have periodic justifications for its existence, or else people will start agitating for defense cuts so we can improve social spending. (Hey, and maybe get a real middle class back, wouldn’t that be cool?) If cutting military is against your ideology, why on earth would you prevent enemies from bombing us, when you know the end result of peace would be dreaded defense cuts?

Add to that Bush’s own personal theory that war makes him popular and important, something he doesn’t even bother to conceal. No matter how silly that’s beginning to sound, it’s still an article of faith to Republicans that chaos and violence are politically beneficial.

Take all these beliefs together—that economic growth from a war would prove once and for all that we don’t need high marginal taxes, that periodic warfare will prevent dreaded defense cuts, and that war is just good politics—and imagine that you’re a person with these beliefs and you get a memo that says, “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US.” If you sincerely believe these things, you’d be highly motivated to toss that memo in the trash, it would seem."

how bout that?

here's the reference again from suskind:

"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.”"

remember that this is at a time when richard clarke and tenet et al were running around with their 'hair on fire' - not just some isolated event. but let's assume for the moment that Bush is entirely innocent in these matters - and let's move the debate to a higher level. he's obviously, demonstrably, simply not sufficiently adult to be president (i know, i know). How many other occasions do you think that he's expressed the exact same sentiment? Yes - we know about the pre-katrina video - and a few others. But how many others? This is how he treats expertise - and this is why we are in the mess that we are in.

Peter Daou has been arguing that it's inappropriate for the Inappropriate Sniggerer to towel-snap journalists - and he's correct - but it's not only journalists, and it's not only in public. He treats experts in exactly the same manner. in private. every opportunity, every interaction, is really purely an opportunity for him to embiggen himself.

what a small, small murderous fucking psychopath man.