Even the talking heads on cable news were flabbergasted by the president's attitude on legislation regarding terrorist interrogation and trial. "Belligerent," summed up Republican David Gergen, an advisor to four presidents. Which is a nice way of saying how the megalomaniac in the Rose Garden could threaten to completely abandon a program -- one he's said for years is essential to national security -- because some people disagree with him on the details.
Of course, those people happen to be among our most respected voices in military and security matters. Including Colin Powell, Bush's one-time Secretary of State, a 35-year soldier who rose from 2nd Lieutenant to Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Sen. John Warner, a Marine Korean War vet and former Secretary of the Navy. Sen. Lindsey Graham, an Air Force judge advocate during the Gulf War, now a colonel in the Reserves. And Sen. John McCain, a naval aviator who was rotting away in the Hanoi Hilton while Bush was skipping physicals in the Texas Air National Guard, having specifically declined overseas (translation: Vietnam) service and, ultimately, failing to even complete the term of service he signed up for.
These are the men who, as administration stooges like Cheney and Snow like to put it, are "confused" about our detainee program. They insist that it's the deserter in the Oval Office who should be trusted.
"The bill I have proposed will ensure that suspected terrorists will receive full and fair trials, without revealing to them our nation's sensitive intelligence secrets," Bush claimed in his press conference. He then proceeded to reveal a host of sensitive intelligence secrets:
"For example, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed described the design of planned attacks of buildings inside the U.S. and how operatives were directed to carry them out. That is valuable information for those of us who have the responsibility to protect the American people. He told us the operatives had been instructed to ensure that the explosives went off at a high -- a point that was high enough to prevent people trapped above from escaping.
"He gave us information that helped uncover al Qaeda cells' efforts to obtain biological weapons.
"We've also learned information from the CIA program that has helped stop other plots, including attacks on the U.S. Marine base in East Africa (and) the American consulate in Pakistan ..."Okay, that just shows how Bush values victory over political opponents more than protecting national security. We've known that since his people exposed Valerie Plame as a CIA operative. (I just couldn't resist highlighting, yet again, Bush's galling hypocrisy. He makes it so damned easy!) More to the point, however, is a little nugget buried deep in the White House transcript of Friday's Rose Garden fear-fest. Defending his support of beating the crap out of terrorism suspects ("suspects" being the key word here, as they've yet to be tried), Bush proclaimed:
"This program has saved
innocent lives. In other words, it's vital."
So vital, in fact, that he threatened at least seven times Friday that no interrogation or trials of any kind would "go forward" unless Congress agrees to unilaterally rewrite parts of the Geneva Convention that he thinks "lack clarity." Meaning, presumably, that the United States would either free all its foreign terror suspects, or keep them imprisoned until they die.
"So Congress has got a decision to make," he said, putting pussies like McCain in their place. "Do you want the program to go forward or not?"
Never in its history has this nation's security and sense of well-being depended so much on someone so small, so hateful, and so traumatized by his own (justified) feelings of inadequacy that he would play chicken with Congress to prove how manly he is.
But then, as he once put it with eloquent and convincing clarity, he's the decider.
