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05/02/2004 Entry: "Bush gambles, loses"
Another miscalculation.
President Bush took a huge diplomatic gamble two weeks ago when he forcefully embraced Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plan to withdraw from Gaza and handed Israel key concessions on a final peace deal. The backlash in Arab and European countries was especially intense, but administration officials argued Sharon's plan carried the seeds of a breakthrough in the stalled peace process.Now, the Likud Party's overwhelming rejection of that plan has left the administration's credibility in the Middle East in tatters. The tilt toward Israel will not soon be forgotten by the Arab world, but it will be harder for the administration to claim that Bush's support of Sharon has made a difference. Moreover, the Likud vote comes when the image of the United States is already greatly damaged by accounts of psychological and sexual abuse of Iraqi prisoners by some U.S. soldiers.
"The real objective of giving Sharon the blank check he left with was to shore up his political support at home," said a State Department official speaking on the condition of anonymity. "We paid a very high price and did not get a return."
Replies: 3 people speak up
How has Glorious Leader squandered our resources? Let us count the ways:
-Budget surplus, squandered.
-Vibrant economy, squandered.
-World goodwill after 9/11, squandered.
-unity among Americans after 9/11 regardless of political stance, squandered
-Credibility in Iraq, squandered.
-Credibility in Israel/Palestine peace process, squandered.
-Credibility in Middle East in general, squandered.
Am I missing anything?
What a fucking tool.
Posted by renato @ 05/03/2004 01:24 AM NY
Missing anything?!?!? Renato, tell me you meant that sarcastically, since you barely scratch the surface. In fact, thinking about items to add to your list, the length is so overwhelming that it would probably use up all of Blah3's storage space and crash it again.
So, in the spirit of unity and bipartisanship and all that other happy horseshit, let's come up with a list of things Bush has done RIGHT. Or at least TRIED to do, since any president has goals (Clinton and universal healthcare come to mind) which may not succeed for some reason.
Okay, here we go: Bush's Good Ideas:
---um, I'm working on it, gimme a minute.
---Another hour or two, I'm sure I'll think of one.
---Damn, three hours gone by already? I gotta get back to work. Maybe some other Esteemed Reader can come up with one. Something, anything that would leave the country, the government, the world, even one human being better off than they were in 2000? (Oh yeah, "human being" means a real person, not a corporation. Improving Haliburton's bottom line will NOT count towards the goal here.)
Posted by Xan @ 05/03/2004 11:22 AM NY
if you make over $200K a year or are a Xian fundamentalist wackjob, then you are certainly better off under the credibility-challenged Bush regime.
Otherwise, you are a fucking idiot if you vote for Bush's re-anointment.
Posted by renato @ 05/03/2004 11:24 AM NY
