The "Shit" Heard Round the World

So all over CNN this morning is video of Bush chatting with Tony Blair in front of an open microphone about the war between Israel and Lebanon. The focus is, of course, on the fact that Bush said "shit," not knowing the mic was live. This is indicative of everything wrong with news today.

First of all, yeah, it's funny. Our falsely prudish national self-image is shocked, shocked by this crass development. The President cusses? God forbid. Ask me, I hate the asshole, but the fact he says "shit" makes me like him one tiny bit more than not at all.

But here's what we should be shocked at. What the guy actually said was "See, the irony is what they really need to do is to get Syria to get Hezbollah to stop doing this shit." This reveals what we all knew but have happily been free to deny up til now: we are being led by a simpleton. This is his idea of foreign diplomacy: Pretend major sovereign nations are kids on a playground, and have one tell his buddy to stop being a dick. Problem solved.

We are all doomed.

Nothing about Bush's "logic" indicates that he has any grasp of what is going on, and what he does seem to grasp is a perspective that has obviously been fed him (perhaps in the form of a picture book?) by pro-Israel elements in the White House. When Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, we stood on principle against such aggression. But when it's Israel, our big idea is to get Syria to talk its pal Hezbollah into not defending itself. And we wonder why our credibility is in the shitter (to borrow from the prez).

And furthermore - Bush talks to WORLD LEADERS with his mouth open. I wonder if he told Blair, "Guess what I'm eating? Seafood! Get it? SEE FOOD!"