Trouble in Bushland

If I were a partisan sort, I might be chortling over the fact that Bush the Magnificent, Liberator of Peoples and Hooder of the Unrighteous, was lining up a private attorney for himself in the Valerie Plame leak investigation.

I might even make a big deal about the fact that this attorney's previous experience includes defending one of the main players in the Iran-Contra scandal.

But instead I'll just note that Bush is running into a little trouble with his latest proposed UN resolution on returning "sovereignty" to Iraq:  Non, Njet, Nein Der Spiegel 06/02/04.  It seems that France, Russia and Germany have different ideas about how this should be handled.  Why, they are actually disagreeing with Bush the Magnificent and his plans!

A couple of years ago, the elected President was concerned about alienating our allies:

I believe that this is unfortunate, because in the immediate aftermath of September 11, more than a year ago, we had an enormous reservoir of goodwill and sympathy and shared resolve all over the world. That has been squandered in a year's time and replaced with great anxiety all around the world, not primarily about what the terrorist networks are going to do, but about what we're going to do. My point is not that they are right to feel that way, but that they do feel that way. And that has consequences for us. Squandering all that goodwill and replacing it with anxiety in a year's time is similar to what was done by turning a hundred-billion-dollar surplus into a two-hundred-billion-dollar deficit in a year's time.

... From the outset, the administration has operated in a manner calculated to please the portion of its base that occupies the far right, at the expense of solidarity among all of us as Americans and solidarity between our country and our allies.

... Regarding other countries, the administration's disdain for the views of others is well documented and need not be reviewed here. It is more important to note the consequences of an emerging national strategy that not only celebrates American strengths, but actually appears to glorify the notion of dominance; the word itself has been used in the councils of the administration. If what America represents to the world is leadership in a commonwealth of equals, then our friends are legion. If what we represent to the world is empire, then it is our enemies who will be legion.

But Bush and his crew, and legions of faithful Oxycontin radio fans eager for a new Iraq War to watch on Fox News, were too busy sneering at "Old Europe" and foaming at the mouth about all those "weapons of mass destruction" that Iraq had to listen to sensible ideas like this.