Bush’s policy change: From reckless to prudent imperialism (Poppy Knows Best)

[Say_What]

<clips>

The policy change has begun: from reckless imperialism to prudent imperialism. The signal: the nomination of the malleable establishment fixer Robert Gates to replace as Defense Secretary the intractable neo con Donald Rumsfeld, who announced his resignation after the election results came in.

Establishment heavies had ganged up on W. In October, James Baker, Daddy’s top consiglieri, set the stage by publicly chastising Baby Bush for his carelessness in Iraq and the Middle East. Co Chair of the bi partisan Iraq Study Group, Baker’s piercing presence on the policy scene signified that Mommy and Daddy Bush had dispatched their top servant to rein in their terminally immature son.

Baker reprimanded Baby for not talking to enemies like Syria and Iran and demanded the White House revise Iraq strategy. Translated, this means W must abandon neo con fantasies of Washington as Rome and adopt instead traditional bi-partisan policies: prudent imperialism. Instead of sending invading armies into the Middle East against the advice of Allies and Establishment figures, use the CIA, occasional bombing if necessary and always use overwhelming military force – under the banner of the UN, NATO or a coalition of the truly willing imperial cohorts.

Faced with disaster at the polls and horrors in Iraq, Bush obeyed. Indeed, as Baker spoke, the prestigious media had already pronounced that Bush’s “stay the course” mantra had changed into a flexible pragmatic discourse. White House flak Tony Snow assured even media slugs that Bush would no longer use “stay the course” rhetoric. The Times interpreted this as “a new effort to emphasize flexibility in the face of some of the bloodiest violence there since the 2003 invasion.” (Oct. 23)

http://www.progresoweekly.com/index.php?progreso=Landau&otherweek=1164693600

[Joe Chi Minh]

1. Bush Jnr has been like a locomotive on rails with his simplistic,

child-like obstinacy to do things his own way or not at all. He's as unfamiliar with the very concept of bipartisanship, as Jack Niklaus said he was with Tiger's game. A wonderful quote of an earlier golfing great. He seems to have an intensely visceral antipathy towards bipartisanship. You sense that he couldn't hack it at all, because he couldn't motivate himself to be interested in it. It seems he's not a politician and absolutely never wanted to be one. Could he suffer from Asperger's syndrome?

With Blair it's ostensibly the same, but radically different in that he could easily have, and surely would have, adapted to bipartisanship, even Socialism, had not his tried and tested corporatism so enriched and empowered him from the outset of his career, beyond anything even half-honest politics could have.

I don't think he has a visceral antipathy to understanding the concept of bipartisanship or following the traditions of his own Socialist party, rather than perverting their content through 180 degrees - or wouldn't have had in earlier times. Now, there's no way he would contemplate Socialism or even Social Democracy. Now, if not visceral in the way Bush's antipathy is, it's intense and "reasoned" (after his own dark "lights").

I don't think it makes him a better person than Bush at all. Not a jot more principled. Just a more mature, calculating miscreant, in ordinary circumstances, much more sinister and harmful.