Our Little Thinkin' President:
Sometimes one can learn so much in a short press conference. To wit:
Did you know that George W. Bush thinks about Iraq every day? It's true. He does. He said so yesterday in a brief meeting with reporters regarding the U.S.-E.U. Summit. Asked why he felt the need to sharpen his focus on Iraq, the leader of the free world said, "I think about Iraq every day -- every single day -- because I understand we have troops in harm's way, and I understand how dangerous it is there."

Which is really cool, because that puts Iraq on the same level with other things Bush thinks about every day, like taking a shit or wondering if the cook's gonna make some fritters or his mother's breasts or those fuckin' reporters who ask all those got-damn questions or making sure Dick Cheney has raw meat or Jenna's ass or wondering if that sore on his cock is gonna heal soon or taking a piss or the absence of Jeff Gannon's warm hands or punching his father in the face or wondering whether Harry Reid or Dick Armey is a dirtier name or Condi's sweet tang or smudges on the furniture or sending the military into Canada to stop 'em from bein' so uppity or Laura taking a moaning shit or the lyrics to the Oscar Meyer weiner song or Karl, tender Karl and his wonderful kisses. Oh, yeah, and then, somewhere in there, Iraq: "And so, you know, I think about this every day, every single day, and will continue thinking about it." Oh, and maybe taking another piss.

And the Rude Pundit may be mistaken, but did the President admit that some of those foreigners being "detained" at Guantanamo are harmless? He said, "Make no mistake, however, that many of those folks being detained -- in humane conditions, I might add -- are dangerous people." Now, the Rude Pundit is no linguist, but when one says that "many" of a group are dangerous, the clear implication is that "some" are not dangerous. Leaving aside the monarchic declaration that "folks" are guilty when they haven't been charged with a crime and leaving aside whatever Marquis de Sade-inspired dictionary the Bush adminstration uses to define words like "humane" and "torture," if "some" of the detainees are not dangerous people, why are we keeping them there?

Bush said that "Some have been released to their previous countries, and they got out and they went on to the battlefield again." It ain't that big a leap of logic to say that perhaps they went to the battlefield because of the way they were treated at Gitmo. That after a couple of years of detention with no way to contact loved ones, no access to legal processes, and at least some brutality and torture in the form of beatings, sleep deprivation, and more, one might be fuckin' pissed when one is released with nothing more than an "oops." Ask yourself: what would Rambo do? No, really, fuckin' ask yourself that. Would Rambo simply walk away and go back to whatever the hell Rambo did? Or would Rambo wanna go back and face down the motherfuckers who are holding his buddies? Oh, wait. That's what Rambo did.

And for all the talk about the "activist" judiciary that Bush spouts, he said yesterday that he is waiting for courts to intervene or not on behalf of the Gitmo inmates: "We're now waiting for a federal court to decide whether or not they can be tried in a military court, where they'll have rights, of course, or in the civilian courts. We're just waiting for our judicial process to move -- to move the process along." Now that the slow process of judicial review is under way, it buys more time to force prisoners into stress positions, chain them down, subject them to loud music and bright lights, scream at them to break them, and then feed them chicken and rice pilaf. And you can bet that the moment a federal court or the Supreme Court says, "Goddamn, you soulless fucks in the executive branch: charge and try these poor bastards or let 'em go," Bush will lead the charge to condemn the justice system as out of touch with his definition of "mainstream" thought.

Yessirree, from the mundane to the surprising to the vicious, the President's words ought to matter. Except what we've learned so, so often is that they don't.