PST

View current page
...more recent posts

Wednesday, Jul 19, 2006

Shit -- or -- Lost in Transcription

I spent some time looking for a video clip of the "Yo, Blair!" exchange. I just wanted to see the look on the PM's face.

I never found it, but instead spent a fair amount of time looking at different versions of the "shit" clip. In most of the transcripts, and some of the video version, the marginally audible comments by Blair and Bush immediately following the "shit" clip are deleted. Or, at best, the transcripts show the exchange as inaudible.

Here's the gist from my viewing/listening to the video sequence. Blair is trying to bend Bush's ear, and in the process is using subordinate body language to Bush's imperial body language. He's trying get Bush to understand his desire to get international intervention in the Israel/Lebanon situation. This is also Annan's approach to the crisis. Bush is bashing Kofi, and seems to be clueless that Blair is backing similar ideas -- despite the fact that Blair had a press conference earlier in the day with Annan, and despite the fact the Blair is attempting to explain his position to Bush at that moment.

Then Bush interrupts this topic and comes up with the brilliant idea that "they", perhaps meaning the U.N., need to get Syria to get Hezbollah to stop that shit. This is followed by the "inaudible" section. To my ear, whatever the precise phrasing, Blair is reacting with shock. He can't believe Bush is really saying something that stupid. I hear something like this from Blair:

Oh my -- dear -- no, shh... ---- Syria.

From the flat monotone in the word "Syria", Bush undertands this response to be incredulity, and counters with "Why?" Why indeed, Buttered Roll Man. Because the situation is what we grownups like to call "complicated".

Blair proceeds to explain how mutliple issues are intertwined, and how we can't count on Assad to rein in Hezbollah. Bush, continuing his distracted, rude communication style pretends to understand. For this section, my interpretation varies from some of the transcripts out there. The text in brackets is mine.

BLAIR What does he [Assad] think? He thinks if Lebanon turns out fine, if we get a solution in Israel and Palestine, Iraq goes in the right way . . .

BUSH [interrupting] Yeah, yeah, he's through.

BLAIR He's had it. And that’s what the whole thing is about. It’s the same with Iran.

Blair is pointing out the dynamic in which Assad has more power due to the conflict. For example, Damascus is the conduit for resources moving from Iran to Hezbollah. This crisis makes Assad more relevant. Disempowering Hezbollah is not in his interest. Likewise, Ahmadinejad has greatly boosted his own political capital -- boosting himself from "Ahmadine-who?" to a presence on the world stage -- by inciting conflict.

Bush follows up with this gem:

BUSH: I felt like telling Kofi to call, to get on the phone to Bashad and make something happen.

Now it's Blair's turn to be passive aggressive. He says "yeah" in a distracted tone -- irritated that everything he's said, about international involvement, the Syrian back story, etc., has gone right over biscuit-boy's meager intellect. Bush is so clueless he can't even pronounce Bashar al-Assad's name.

I can just imagine the thought cloud. "Oh, dear. Oh fuckity fuck dear. I'm dealing with a man who can't rub two thoughts together to keep his own brain warm."

Tuesday, Jul 18, 2006

Yes, walking rather than driving would be healthy

But I don't think that's what Bill Kristol meant. Referring to his suggestion of "a military strike against Iranian nuclear facilities", Kristol opined,

Yes, there would be repercussions - and they would be healthy ones ...

Ahistory

For the last 60 years, American administrations of both stripes — Democrat, Republican — traded what they thought was security and stability and turned a blind eye to the absence of democratic forces, to the absence of pluralism in the region. And out of that set of policies we got a situation that produced or helped produce al Qaeda and other extremist elements. That policy has changed.

Condoleezza Rice ABC's This Week, July 16, 2006

Americans are so ahistorical about the actions of their own country that Rice can say this an no one even blink.

Operation Ajax (1953) (officially TP-AJAX) was a covert operation by Great Britain and the United States to remove the democratic[1] cabinet of Iranian Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh from power, to support the Pahlavi dynasty and consolidate the power of Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi. The idea of overthrowing Mossadegh was conceived by the British. They originally asked President Truman for assistance, but he refused. When Eisenhower became president in 1953, the British proposed the idea once again, and this time, the Americans agreed to help.

Wikipedia, Operation Ajax

older posts...