Giving Do-Do its Due

Of course:

A Little Respect, Please

I would like to join Treason-in-Defense-of-Slavery Yankee in scolding certain bloggers who yesterday chose to make light of President Bush's ominous warnings of a disaster in Iraq. If we have learned nothing else from his seven years in office, we have learned that when President Bush speaks about Iraq or the greater Middle East, his insights must be treated with the respect to which only clairvoyants are entitled.

Posted by d at 11:43 AM

Froomkin (H/T Atrios)(all emphases mine):

The White House yesterday also released transcripts of interviews Bush gave Monday to members of the foreign press.

Here's the transcript of his interview with Mona Shazli of Egyptian Dream TV.

Q. "You will be in the region very soon -- Israel, Saudi Arabia, then Egypt. The question is, maybe there are 250 million Arabs who think that President Bush has added to their suffering and problems during his administration. How would you adjudicate this?"

Bush: "I would just ask them to wait for history to answer the question. There's an advent of a young democracy in Iraq. Ask those people what it's like to live under a freer society, rather than the thumb of a tyrant or a dictator; or the people that we're trying to help in Lebanon by getting the Syrians out through a U.N. Security Council resolution; or the Palestinians who -- for whom I've articulated a state.

"In other words, I understand people's opinions. All I ask is that when history is finally recorded, judge whether or not I've been a contributor to peace or not."

'Kay.

Q. "Do you think history will be in your side?"

Bush: "I think history will say George Bush clearly saw the threats that keep the Middle East in turmoil, and was willing to do something about it, was willing to lead, and had this great faith in the capacity of democracies and great faith in the capacity of people to decide the fate of their countries; and that the democracy movement gained impetus and gained movement in the Middle East. Yeah, I think people will say, he had a difficult set of circumstances to deal with, and he dealt with them, with a sense of idealism."

"idealism"? Yeah, right. Try "imbecilic arrogance."

And here's Bush talking to Lukman Ahmed of BBC Arabic.

Q. "You are calling both Iran and Syria to halt their support to Hezbollah. But in the absence of any direct contact with Iran and Syria, your administration -- how do you think both countries should stop doing this? You are not negotiating with them, you are not exploring other means to have them halt their support."

Bush: "So what's there to negotiate? I mean, they know my position. . . . "

Got that? "They know my position."

Q. " Syria is -- last question, last question. Mr. President, seriously the end question. Obviously the people have in mind that the presentation at the U.N. with regard to the Iraqi weapon of mass destruction, so how do you see that?"

Bush: "Look, the difference was, in this case, there was concrete examples. I mean, everybody that analyzed the data realized it was true."

Which, of course, is a blatant, outright lie. Surprise, surprise.