Mea Culpa?

If there's any single thing Donny Strunz REALLY hates to do, it's admit that he fucked up real bad. This creates serious problems for him since he fucks up everything he does real bad. His latest fuckup is his decision to pull U.S. troops out of Syria, which was meant to be a gift to his boss in Russia disguised as a meaningful foreign policy that might get him a Nobel Prize like Obama's.

This has blown up in Strunz's face, much to his surprise. He's catching grief from everybody, including his hardcore right-wing evangelical base and ass-kissers like Lindsey Graham. It'll be amusing to see how he tries to salvage this mess without appearing to admit he's a royal fuckup.

Wasted time, wasted money

Those of us who have been paying attention always knew The Big Orange Hemorrhoid was just wasting U.S. tax dollars on a dog-and-pony show for his fan club. The Summit in Singapore was a joke, with no realistic possibility that any substantive changes for the better would result from it. Donnie was too lazy to prepare, and Kim happily exploited the fat fool for his own propaganda purposes.

Normally, having a president taken to the woodshed and spanked by North Korea's dictator would be a bitter pill to swallow. But this asshole is not a real president, and these are not normal times. When a situation's this desperate, things probably need to get much worse before they will get better, and that's what I'm expecting.

Fuck preparation, right?

First, Rudy Tootie laughs about the leader of North Korea crawling on his hands and knees to beg Russian asset Donnie Dogsquat for a summit meeting.  Now Donnie says he doesn't need to prepare for the dog-and-pony show because it's all about attitude. His idea of preparation is getting his hair varnished so it won't move in the wind.

This is shaping up as a catastrophe looking for a place to occur. Personally, it won't trouble me to see Donnie humiliated and made to look foolish again.

Updated 2:42 PM Friday 8 June: Giving the Russian asset the authority to issue pardons is like giving a first-grader a .22 caliber rifle for his birthday. It's like a new toy he shouldn't have. Inappropriate for his maturity level.

Foreigners

The brilliance of Willard Romney.

Chances Are

One possibility that I've been considering is this: If Mexicans entering the United States legally or otherwise could be relied upon to vote for Republicans at least 90 percent of the time, most of the racket would die down pretty quickly.

The cards he was dealt

Last night I watched Obama's address at West Point, during which he laid out his plans for Afghanistan and the rationale for them. I'm not surprised that he's catching flak from both left and right this morning, since he didn't promise a swift pullout the left wants or the unending war the right prefers. I went into the Obama presidency working under assumptions that he was brighter than the guy who had the job before him, and that he'd always try to do what he thought was best for the country. The assumptions may be erroneous, but there they are.

So I'm looking at the Afghanistan plan as the result of an intelligent man playing the rotten cards he was dealt, making a tough decision in a dilemma where there are absolutely no good choices.

Measuring Up

Writers at conservative website Real Clear Politics assert that Afghanistan will be the first time since Vietnam that the ability of Democrats to manage a war will be tested. God knows, they'll be compared to the masterful performance of Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Rove in Iraq. Can they measure up when the bar has been set that high ?

The stages of spin

During a slow weekend for interesting political news, there are reports quoting Iraq's Prime Minister, al-Maliki, to the effect that he thinks Barry's policy and timeframes for American troop withdrawal are pretty much on the money.

This has resulted in concerns on the conservative side, and we're currently in stage one of their official reaction: Maliki's comments weren't translated correctly. The next stage(s) will probably include at least one of the following: (a) Maliki misunderstood the question, (b) Maliki was tricked by the interviewer, (c) Maliki was just kidding around, (d) Maliki forgot to take his pills, (e) it was really an imposter pretending to be Maliki, or (f) there's no such person as Maliki.

Right now in the Green Zone, some Blackwater guy in Ray-Bans is probably asking Maliki how he'll like sleeping with the fishes.

What a great idea !

This morning I read an interesting story in the local newspaper about the miles and miles of walls being erected in Baghdad, and the effect they've had in reducing violence. The image I get is of large sections of the city being partitioned into the equivalent of oversized office cubicles. Walls of concrete, some 20 feet high, are described as creating a "maze" that makes it hard for the bad guys to get around town to do their bad things. Of course, a lot of the citizens are starting to complain because it makes it hard for them to get to the store or to their jobs. Those people are always bitching about the stuff we do for them. They should be grateful to have so many new square feet of blank space upon which to paint their graffiti.

Why didn't we think of this sooner ? If we can ever figure out how to erect a 6-foot wall around every man, woman, and child in Iraq, we can call it a night and come on home.