PMC Commentary

Tightening the screws, again

Yesterday the New York Times reported on the latest dispatch from Autocracy Central:

President Bush has signed a directive that gives the White House much greater control over the rules and policy statements that the government develops to protect public health, safety, the environment, civil rights and privacy.

In an executive order ... Mr. Bush said that each agency must have a regulatory policy office run by a political appointee, to supervise the development of rules and documents providing guidance to regulated industries. The White House will thus have a gatekeeper in each agency to analyze the costs and the benefits of new rules and to make sure the agencies carry out the president’s priorities.

This strengthens the hand of the White House in shaping rules that have, in the past, often been generated by civil servants and scientific experts. It suggests that the administration still has ways to exert its power after the takeover of Congress by the Democrats.

For being news, however, all of this sounded eerily familiar. Something less like news than history -- bad history, the kind of dark-chapter stuff that alarms at the time, but soon recedes into almost forgotten territory once, in the public's mind, the danger passes.

The reason it sounded so familiar -- thematically verbatim, if you will -- is that just a few weeks ago, I finally remembered, I had read this:

What was planned was surgery on the government of the United States ... an attempted change in the nature of the Presidency, almost, but not quite, amounting to a Constitutional change.

The President was about to streamline by fiat the entire Executive Branch of government, install within every department a personal agent of the White House staff to supervise it ... and purge the bureaucracy until it became the unquestioning subordinate instrument of the White House policy center which [the president] alone would direct.

That was written by journalist Theodore H. White in Breach of Faith: The Fall of Richard Nixon. It is striking how yesterday's news parallels something written 32 years ago about a scheme hatched three years before that.

Our 37th president's obsession with absolute power was a pathology with many parents, but chief among them was a deep-seated insecurity stemming from the paranoia that others might want to play in his sandbox. That, too, sounds quite familiar.

Nixon's grand reordering never came to fruition. He was soon preoccupied with other matters of his sinking ship of state, like Watergate. But it should also be recalled that Dick Cheney began his political career in the Nixon White House, whereupon he nurtured his own unitary-executive pathologies. And in that sense, Nixon's ghost is still with us and Nixonianism is still playing out.

Mr. Bush may have signed the executive order, but Mr. Cheney's historical fingerprints are all over it.

Presumably with a straight face, the Office of Management and Budget's general counsel applied Ron Ziegler-like spin to the updated, new-and-improved Nixonian document: “This is a classic good-government measure that will make federal agencies more open and accountable.”

But accountable to whom? The people? Congress? The courts? That's so ... founding fatherish.

Let's just cut out the bothersome fuss of checks and balances. Let us eliminate all that "messy democracy" stuff. Better to leave matters to one man -- or, rather, for the time being, leave them to one man's small but efficient, plutocratic circle.

As Rep. Henry Waxman said, this may be "a terrible way to govern, but [it's] great news for special interests." And it is special interests, of course, that oil the machine of autocracy.

Somewhere, Dick Nixon is smiling.

Hagel’s (un)Hyped Hellfire

Liberals – some liberals, anyway – should be careful about what they wish for.

These rumored “some” are all aquiver about elevating Republican Senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraska to the White House in 2008, because – exclusively because – of the senator’s outspoken, visceral criticism of Mr. Bush’s war, as a Washington Post piece notes this morning:

“[Hagel’s] standing among conservative party faithful who will determine the outcome of the Republican presidential nomination remains strikingly low because of the intensity of his attacks on Bush. But Hagel has gained a particular following within the antiwar community. An Internet ‘draft Hagel’ movement has formed, and even die-hard liberals admit they find him appealing.”

Perhaps Hagel’s grassroots liberal support has been exaggerated by the press, as indicated by the latter’s referencing of only one or two enthusiastic liberal voices, such as …

“‘Chuck Hagel for president! If it ever narrows down to a choice between him and some Democratic hack who hasn't the guts to fundamentally challenge the president on Iraq, then the conservative Republican from Nebraska will have my vote,’ said an Internet article last week by [liberal columnist] Robert Scheer.”

The WP piece isn’t exactly loaded with statistical proof of an actual liberal groundswell for Hagel, but who knows? Perhaps there is one.

And if so, these supportive liberals are playing with fire, which will burn them but good should their wish for a President Hagel be granted.

Why? Just check out the following, representative voting record of Senator Hagel, which I’ve reproduced here from the nonpartisan research organization of OnTheIssues.org. But be warned: Your progressive hair is likely to stand on end.

Voted NO on $100M to reduce teen pregnancy by education & contraceptives. (Mar 2005)

Voted YES on recommending Constitutional ban on flag desecration.

Voted NO on repealing tax subsidy for companies which move US jobs offshore. (Mar 2005)

Voted NO on shifting $11B from corporate tax loopholes to education. (Mar 2005)

Voted NO on banning drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. (Mar 2005)

Voted NO on funding for National Endowment for the Arts. (Aug 1999)

Voted NO on favoring 1997 McCain-Feingold overhaul of campaign finance. (Oct 1997)

Voted YES on prohibiting lawsuits against gun manufacturers. (Jul 2005)

Voted YES on limiting medical liability lawsuits to $250,000. (May 2006)

Voted YES on reauthorizing the PATRIOT Act. (Mar 2006)

Voted NO on raising the minimum wage to $7.25 rather than $6.25. (Mar 2005)

Voted YES on permanently repealing the ‘death tax.’ (Jun 2006)

Had enough? No? Then check out these statistics:

Rated 0% by NARAL, indicating a pro-life voting record. (Dec 2003)

Rated 36% by the NEA, indicating a mixed record on public education. (Dec 2003)

Rated 0% by the [League of Conservation Voters], indicating anti-environment votes. (Dec 2003)

Rated 100% by the Christian Coalition: a pro-family voting record. (Dec 2003)

Rated A by the NRA, indicating a pro-gun rights voting record. (Dec 2003)

Rated 12% by the [American Public Health Association], indicating an anti-public health voting record. (Dec 2003)

Rated 8% by the AFL-CIO, indicating an anti-union voting record. (Dec 2003)

Rated 22% by the [Alliance of Retired Americans], indicating an anti-senior voting record. (Dec 2003)

And, finally, the right-wing pièces de ré·sis·tance:

90% conservative voting record; 95% support of Pres. Bush. (Dec 2006)

Sound like someone you want in the White House?

I rest my case.

Talking-point heaven

Republican apologists trying to thread the needle of both disdaining their leader while obligatorily disdaining the opposition party that also disdains him for many of the same reasons has been, to mix metaphors, a high-wire act of highest amusement. It's been a fascinating show, and promises to get even better.

The poor dears are beside themselves. For electoral reasons they appreciate the urgency of distancing themselves from Radioactive George, even trashing him publicly. He's botched everything he's touched, and one more mutual embrace could politically toast them as well.

Yet Democrats are villifying George for much the same cause. How, oh how, then, can at-large Republicans trash Dems for trashing George who's now routinely trashed by everyone but Barney, without un-trashing their intended trashed target of George? You see the problem.

We've seen a few talking-point dress rehearsals rolled out of late -- George may be pixilated, but Dems are indecisive; George may be a big spender, but Dems are bigger spenders; George may be isolated, but Dems are beholden to narrow special interests.

But for my money, columnist Robert Novak wins the prize this morning for rolling out in the most innovative way the most acerbic talking point yet: Democrats don't play well with others. They're "rude." They're uncooperative. They disdain bipartisanship.

Novak's petulant offense-defense has the added benefit of incorporating the highest of Republican values -- hypocrisy. Those who snubbed and ignored the minority for six years -- those now of minority or embattled status themselves -- are sudden acolytes of the Holy Grail of bipartisanship. Jaw-dropping, indeed.

The columnist saw his opening when Democrats rejected George's stated state-of-the-union idea of a bipartisan "special advisory council" to consult on the "war on terror," meaning, of course, the disastrous war in Iraq. But the idea -- the offer -- was a set-up (which Novak fails to directly concede in his column), for George already "had in his pocket a rude rejection from Democratic leaders," doubling as an "overt snub."

Nevertheless the Democratic rejection, opined Novak, showed that the opposition wished not to "function ... as friendly colleagues in the spirit of bipartisanship." Bad Democrats. Bad, bad Democrats.

Further, "The Democratic leadership is beyond consultation on Iraq, as demonstrated by the selection of Sen. Jim Webb to deliver the party's response to the president Tuesday night. Webb ... is a hard-edged critic of the war not interested in bipartisanship. Discarding staff-written talking points, professional writer Webb declared: 'The president took us into this war recklessly.'"

Let's see. The president did, didn't he? Aren't rebuttals supposed to clarify as well as rebut? And if so, I can't think of a better or more obvious clarifying rebuttal to Mr. Bush's war management than the charge of "reckless."

Novak's most endearing insincerity, however, was this: "Webb's astringent comments contrasted sharply with Bush's tone, which indicated he still has not shed illusions [about bipartisan cooperation] that he carried from Austin to Washington in 2001."

Our congenial, cooperative president, observed Novak, deliberately shunned socially conservative topics such as abortion and same-sex marriage in his state of the union speech so as not to offend oppositional sensitivities, and instead graciously offered Democratic-enticing olive branches of, for instance, better health insurance and energy independence.

Yet sadly, as Novak further observed, those shameful Democrats are rebuffing Mr. Bush's splendiferous grace. Bad Democrats. Bad, bad Democrats.

But wait. Novak's assessment was beginning to show too much friendliness toward Radioactive George, was it not? To fix this -- to distance from, after cozying up -- Mr. Novak quickly spun and quoted an unnamed, Republican "ranking House committee member" as saying "The president and his aides are irrelevant and out of touch, removed from realizing what happened in the election."

See how it works? Bad-good Bush. Bad-bad Democrats. Double-good Old Guard.

You gotta love it.

The last-gasp, final diversion

The president's constitutional obligation last night may have been to assess the state of our union, but that singularity would have required a kind of unreal, out-of-body thought experiment, since the state of our union is now inextricably tied with the state of Iraq -- a make-believe "ally" defined by corrupt politicians rendered impotent by civil war.

That definition is how the American people now see Iraq with blistered 20/20 vision, so the president's now-you-see-it, now-you-don't mission Tuesday became, sadly, to once again obscure reality and blur the picture.

How to do that? Simple, for Mr. Bush, anyway. Just reach back into the grab bag of familiar obfuscations and verbal muddling.

As the president told it, in Iraq we're engaged in a titanic struggle with ... you got it ... al Qaeda. Forget the turmoil's 98 percent of non-al Qaeda sectarian madmen hellbent on slaughtering their brothers and sisters out of religious, ethnic and tribal divisions. This is a fight against the enemy of bin Laden's making, the mastermind and perpetrator of 9/11. Plain and simple.

Over and over, that's what we heard. Al Qaeda, terrorism, the war on terror, 9/11 -- all mingled and mixed with staggering rhetorical subterfuge.

The president launched his headfake in the mere second sentence of his foreign affairs assessment: "Five years have come and gone since we saw the scenes and felt the sorrow that the terrorists can cause.... We know with certainty that the horrors of that September morning were just a glimpse of what the terrorists intend for us, unless we stop them."

And then off he went, continuing in full, diversionary stride:

"Yet one question has surely been settled: that to win the war on terror we must take the fight to the enemy."

Followed by "The evil that inspired and rejoiced in 9/11 is still at work in the world."

Followed by "In the minds of the terrorists, this war began well before Sept. 11 and will not end until their radical vision is fulfilled."

Followed by "Al Qaeda and its followers are Sunni extremists, possessed by hatred and commanded by a harsh and narrow ideology."

Followed by "Osama bin Laden declared: 'Death is better than living on this Earth with the unbelievers among us.'"

Followed by "These men are not given to idle words, and they are just one camp in the Islamist radical movement."

Followed by "it has also become clear that we face an escalating danger from Shia extremists who are just as hostile to America, and are also determined to dominate the Middle East. Many are known to take direction from the regime in Iran, which is funding and arming terrorists like Hezbollah, a group second only to Al Qaeda in the American lives it has taken."

Followed by "The Shia and Sunni extremists are different faces of the same totalitarian threat.... They slaughter the innocent, they have the same wicked purposes. They want to kill Americans, kill democracy in the Middle East and gain the weapons to kill on an even more horrific scale."

Followed by "This war is more than a clash of arms — it is a decisive ideological struggle, and the security of our nation is in the balance."

I could go on, since Mr. Bush did just that, but you get the idea.

The actual, breathtakingly complex problems in Iraq, with Iraq, were either wholly neglected or only fleetingly referenced. Its "sectarian violence" was mentioned all of once. Its civil war was mentioned not at all. Nor were our tremendous losses in blood and treasure; nor any mention of the national sacrifice needed to achieve victory in the real "war on terror," wherever that might be hiding out.

Mr. Bush had the chance to level with the American people last night -- his last chance to make clear that he finally comprehends, accepts and admits what everyone else knows: that Iraq is a non-9/11 diversion from America's actual threats.

He didn't take that chance, and that was the true "period" added to this war's moment in history. It was the effective end of Mr. Bush's war management and the beginning of the Democrats'. Senator Jim Webb said so, in so many words, afterward.

And Now for Something Not Completely Different

At least this morning's above-the-fold story didn't contain the word, "Iraq." My geopolitical awareness was beginning to suffer the narrowness that every international crisis brings, and the Iraq crisis, nearly four years grinding, was taking a predictable toll: The only real estate that mattered any longer, it seemed, was a parcel of desert populated by warring Sunnis and Shiites sandwiched between other warring Sunnis and Shiites in training.

So God bless the Chinese, who literally went ballistic and zapped a weather satellite in orbit last week. Their high-wire act of technological demolition caused "concern" of crisis proportion among U.S. officials, reminding me that once we dispense with laying waste to the cradle of civilization, we do have at least one other enemy -- this time a worthy one -- waiting geopolitically elsewhere in the wings.

And what good is a superpower without enemies? Who else could keep our military-industrial complex the robust, strapping lad that it is?

China's pulverization of an orbiting satellite has some of our more neurotic "arms control experts" dubbing it "a troubling development that could foreshadow an antisatellite arms race." But ah, music to others' ears -- "arms race." Remember those good old days? That there is money in the bank. The Complex finds it altogether un-"troubling." It is, rather, downright orgiastic.

And most inviting of all, who else but our enemies best hone our international hypocrisy?

It seems that the Bush administration's outrage at the Chinese is, like everything else, self-inflicted, since, after all, it is "the Bush administration [that] has long resisted a global treaty banning such tests because it says it needs freedom of action in space."

We need freedom of action. Others, for reasons unknown or staggeringly laughable, need permission. We, for reasons unknown or staggeringly laughable, are officially special.

Last summer the United States -- meaning you-know-who -- released a "new national space policy" as a deliberate slap in the face of those calling for a "global prohibition" of antisatellite weaponization. The policy declared America would "preserve its rights, capabilities, and freedom of action in space" and "dissuade or deter others from either impeding those rights or developing capabilities intended to do so." If needed -- and here looms the ever-reliable apocalyptic threat -- America would "deny ... adversaries the use of space capabilities hostile to U.S. national interests."

But that's not the best part of this hypocritical saga. For in response to China's recent antisatellite test, the White House released a statement saying that the little buggers' "development and testing of such weapons is inconsistent with the spirit of cooperation that both countries aspire to in the civil space area."

Yep, you read that right. That's what it said.

Nearly as choice as that bit of mind-bending hypocrisy is that "American officials complained yesterday that China had made no public or private announcements about its test, despite repeated requests by American officials for more openness about its actions."

Follow us, world, for are we not a moral beacon when it comes to demonstrating openness?

I honestly no longer know whether to be outraged, amused, or merely resigned to perpetual awe by the sanctimonious quackery splashed around daily by the Bush administration. But I do know this: When the actions of our "enemies" begin to appear to the average American as more justified than our own, something is very rotten at our core.

LITERAL NEWS FLASH: George W. Bush, pro-terrorist Democrat

The AP headline from an hour ago reads, "Justice Dept. to Seek Court’s Approval for U.S. Spying."

So it's official. Unless Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is acting without presidential approval, George W. Bush is pro-terrorist.

He's also a wimp. A civil-liberties namby-pamby. An ACLU-hugger. UnAmerican.

And not least of all, he's uninterested in knowing who al Qaeda is talking to, here and abroad. He'd prefer to let bomb-throwing bastards slip through our fingers while we wait for sissified court approval to eavesdrop than just get done what a real man needs to do.

What other conclusion can one come to, given that these are the very charges the president for months leveled against Democrats who opposed the administration's domestic spying program sans federal court oversight.

Nevertheless, Gonzales has sent a letter to Senators Pat Leahy and Arlen Specter, saying "any electronic surveillance that was occurring as part of the Terrorist Surveillance Program will now be conducted subject to the approval of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

"Accordingly, under these circumstances, the President has determined not to reauthorize the Terrorist Surveillance Program when the current authorization expires.''

Quiet, quick and clean. That's the way we do things now.

I would have written a full column on this, but "this" -- pure horseshit -- is getting so old.

Let's see, how many days till Jan. 20, 2009?

Our Tiger's Spots

Relying on its known integrity to counteract the United Nations' just-released civilian casualty figures for 2006, the Iraq government has dismissed as "inaccurate and exaggerated" the number 71,137 -- 34,452 killed and 36,685 wounded. Iraqi officials say the true number of civilians killed was only 12,357.

Well that's a relief. Nearly 35,000 murdered innocents would indicate trouble ahead for Iraq's stability, wrapped in a desert democracy, whereas just a few more than 12,000 is one of those "Whew, we-dodged-that-bullet" moments (but either way is literally untrue, since most dead civilians got that way as a result of gunshot wounds.)

But wait. Did I say democracy? Heaven forfend. That's so yesterday.

For the Bush administration has now quietly dropped its Middle East goo-goo rhetoric and, through the actions of its eternally befuddled mouthpiece Condi Rice, has chosen to rewarm to the older, friendlier, more familiar brands of dictatorship overseas, similar to what it's trying to build at home.

From this morning's New York Times:

"In the days before Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met with officials in Egypt, the news media here were filled with stories detailing charges of corruption, cronyism, torture and political repression....

"Ms. Rice, who once lectured Egyptians on the need to respect the rule of law, did not address those domestic concerns. Instead, with Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit by her side, she talked about her appreciation for Egypt’s support in the region.

"It was clear that the United States -- facing chaos in Iraq, rising Iranian influence and the destabilizing Israeli-Palestinian conflict -- had decided that stability, not democracy, was its priority."

It was clear from the beginning of Mr. Bush's escapade in Iraq that democracy had nothing to do with his misadventurous designs. He only used that desired ideal as Reason Number Three to justify invasion after the pursuits of WMD (One) and then noble humanitarianism (Two) fell flat on their faces.

I forget what occupying Reason we're up to now, but whatever the count, at least we have one -- stability -- although it could go the way of Reasons One, Two, Three, Four ... at any moment, suffering the same quiet death as its predecessors.

The Bush administration jumps the war-justification tracks with a political finesse that rankles, yet what rankles (me, anyway) even more is that it never, never ever, admits that the previously traveled track was boneheaded.

Within the pantheon of great presidents in which Mr. Bush so desperately wants to rest, we see a deep-seated leadership quality altogether foreign to our current president: a sincere penchant for consistent values and straightforwardness. For example when Mr. Lincoln decided that slavery's abolition might be a nice addition to the Union's war aims, he didn't dump the Union's preservation as the principal casus belli. It was merely enhanced.

When FDR squared off with the economic monster of the Great Depression, he announced up front that he would try new fixes -- and if they proved boneheaded he'd say so and then try something else. Simple as that. And when JFK (whose true greatness only seemed destined) launched the utterly ill-fated Bay of Pigs, he afterward went on the air and publicly slapped himself in the face. That one admission of stupidity probably strengthened Kennedy more than any success.

Such consistency and honesty endeared the likes of Lincoln, FDR and JFK to the populace, and in no small part because it seemed obvious those qualities were not strained. Those men were naturals -- in short, naturally good men.

Need I say more about Mr. Bush's most fundamental problem -- The Reason why his bad always goes to worse?

Vice-President Capone Meets the Reich Ministry of Justice

A "perfectly legitimate activity" is how the vice president described the government's most recently revealed intrusion into civil liberties -- that of the Pentagon and CIA's snooping into financial records of "suspect" Americans -- an intrusion that the New York Times bluntly reports is "barred ... by law."

In the accommodating atmosphere of "Fox News Sunday," Mr. Cheney declared, "There’s nothing wrong with it or illegal. It doesn’t violate people’s civil rights. And if an institution that receives one of these national security letters [i.e., a written Pentagon/CIA demand for private financial records] disagrees with it, they’re free to go to court to try to stop its execution."

Such institutional pushback would be an odd reaction indeed to a "perfectly legitimate activity" by the government, however. First of all, financial institutions are being instructed officially as to the letters' legitimacy, so many are apt to automatically comply without question or resistance.

But Mr. Cheney knows what is really in play here, and it has nothing to do with anyone's or anything's legitimacy. In reality, what's in play is plain, ordinary, authoritarian, crytofascist intimidation.

Financial houses are regulated, overseen, and licensed, if you will, by the federal government. Not only their prosperity, but their very existence is dependent on the feds' smiling good graces. Thus if a federal muscleman appears today, let's say in the form of a Pentagon or CIA official dubiously requesting private information, they had better damn well play ball or they might find themselves out business tomorrow. (Richard Nixon contemplated, and occasionally threatened, precisely this strongarm tactic with federally licensed television networks that reported less than welcome news.)

To Mr. Cheney, the U.S. Constitution is an impediment to good government, what with all those bothersome, civilly liberating amendments and all. Nor do legal counsels at financial institutions first check the Constitution when it comes to paying respect to their deity -- the bottom line. So when Mr. Cheney, replete with bulging, regulatory federal muscles, protests that those institutions are "free to go to court" to likewise protest a secondary (to them) Constitutional concern, it's a little -- strike that -- a lot like Al Capone telling you you're free to buy your speakeasy beer from Bugs Moran.

This latest revelation of government by criminal-crytofascist intimidation comes on the heels of last week's outrage -- the Pentagon's casual reinvention of our legal system.

It seems a certain Mr. Charles D. Stimson, the deputy assistant secretary of defense for detainee affairs, took to Federal News Radio airwaves Thursday to tinker a bit with the tedious, traditional notion of defendants' rights and fair legal representation: "I think the news story that you’re really going to start seeing in the next couple of weeks is this: As a result of a FOIA request through a major news organization, somebody asked, ‘Who are the lawyers around this country representing detainees down there [in Guantánamo]?’ and you know what, it’s shocking....

"I think, quite honestly, when corporate C.E.O.’s see that those firms are representing the very terrorists who hit their bottom line back in 2001, those C.E.O.’s are going to make those law firms choose between representing terrorists or representing reputable firms."

And what prescience Mr. Stimson had, for the following day in the Wall Street Journal came a board editorial that "cited the list of law firms and quoted an unnamed 'senior U.S. official' as saying, 'Corporate C.E.O.’s seeing this should ask firms to choose between lucrative retainers and representing terrorists.'"

The above's malodorous antithesis to what's generally regarded as the noblest principle within our legal system makes any conscientious American retch, but it's just another day at the office for authoritarian superspooks and right-wing journalists.

As for your banking records? You're on your own. Ain't nobody watching your back there, either.

The Dick Cheneys and Charles Stimsons and other cryptofascist ideologues in charge have only two years left to perfect their perfect legitimacy. And at this rate what a happy, carefree little nation we'll be by then, so thoroughly safe and secure.

Entitled criminality

The president's most revealing comments on his prosecution of the Iraq war came not on the air last night, but beforehand in a private confab with Congressional leaders.

In his speech, Mr. Bush spoke vaguely and inconclusively about the consequences of Prime Minister Maliki's failure to cooperate with the administration's "New Way Forward": "If the Iraqi government does not follow through on its promises, it will lose the support of the American people and it will lose the support of the Iraqi people."

Seeing how the support of both fell through long ago, the remark was as baffling and empty as it was vague and inconclusive. But we're used to that, so let's forgo beating that dead horse among the accumulating herd of dead horses.

In his earlier White House meeting with Majority Leader Reid, Speaker Pelosi and Congressional others, however, Mr. Bush, according to the New York Times, brusquely framed the same issue this way: "I said to Maliki this has to work or you’re out."

No more chances. No more bilateral negotiations with our own uncertain ally. No more Mr. Nice Guy permitting a sovereign nation to conduct its business with sovereignty. The prime minister either gets it right or he's gone -- presumably at the hands of an American-orchestrated coup.

The ultimatum says a lot about Mr. Bush's own sense of entitlement -- his inner assurance that he and he alone should be in charge and stay in charge of this mess, no matter how many times he fails, fails again and keeps on failing. After all, how many chances has the president had to get things right in Iraq? How many times has he covered failure, excused failure or promised success while mired in the abyss of certain failure?

Others are rightly subject to accountability and finality, was the one reasonable side of Mr. Bush's message. The other was that he, for reasons unproffered, is regally exempt from that human condition -- although the adverb "regally" is proffer enough, in his mind.

Another remark to Congressional leaders was even more revealing of the president's insular, bubbled mind. Asked time and again why this fourth or fifth "new way" would prove victorious when the past three or four haven't, Mr. Bush finally blurted: "Because it has to."

Simple as that. Reality be damned. We, meaning 150,000 human targets, are now fighting with the brigades of a hope and a wish and a prayer. The commander in chief can "will" victory and victory shall ensue.

Why? How? Well, simply "because it has to."

That's more than delusional, the frame of mind most commonly attributed to Mr. Bush. That's criminal negligence wrapped in fraudulent faith and served on a plate of pure, willful hokum.

Entitled criminality -- that's what we have in charge. And the ways in which Congress can unseat or deal with it are even more problematic than the war itself.

The prepubescent mind of George W.

I have a seven-year-old daughter, whose seven-year-old mind is a clinical study in determined opposition to mature, sensible advice. Whatever I suggest as a parent, she as a child is sure to treat as a conspiracy to upset her well-ordered world, which is generally quite divorced from the given situation's surrounding reality. Since I'm not a pediatric neurologist, I know not what synaptic connections that form mature thought are struggling to find their way. All I do know is that most people grow out of such determination to battle maturity.

George hasn't. Hence mature, sensible and (some literally) parental counsel against military involvement in Iraq was sure to be confronted with indignant rebelliousness. Similar advice against an escalation of the mayhem was also, for sure, to meet the same fate. No one tells George what George should do. Any sound advice contrary to his natural inclinations is perceived as intrusive, parental-like authority meant only to upset his comfortable, self-defined reality. To wit ...

The Joint Chiefs -- those military folks on whom George dumps loads of adoration as long as they pat him on the head -- have fervently and persistently warned "that a modest troop increase could lead to more attacks by al-Qaeda, provide more targets for Sunni insurgents and fuel the jihadist appeal for more foreign fighters to flock to Iraq to attack U.S. troops."

What's the infantile mind to do? Why of course: increase our presence, encourage more attacks, provide more targets and fuel foreign jihadist enlistment. Take that.

Probably the oddest excuse-making for George's behavior comes from experienced enabler Philip Zelikow, formerly of the State Department. "The president wasn't satisfied with the recommendations [reality] he was getting, and he thought we need a strategy that was more purposeful and likely to succeed if the Iraqis could make that possible."

His implication was that the Joint Chiefs, as advice-dispensing badasses focused exclusively on ruining George's day, conspired to present Junior only with recommendations void of purpose and designed to fail. Only our plucky president in his wide-eyed and searching innocence recognized the need for a strategy "likely to succeed."

Zekilow's analysis would as funny as it is odd, if it wasn't grounded in something so tragically puerile.

And naturally the millions of other amateurs telling George two months ago, in the form of pulling a lever, what to do was met with a sudden case of ... presidential deafness. Whenever my daughter fails to heed a request for some certain chore to be done, her later and not uncommon defense is that she simply didn't hear the request. Similarly the White House has dispatched its spokesman, Tony Snow. National election? You think that had something to do with the war? No, no. We didn't hear that at all. (It was about corruption, if you're wondering.)

The best evidence, however, for the case to be made that a mere, developmentally arrested child with all the childlike attributes of rebelliousness and unreasonableness reigns in the White House is the latter's reaction to the Iraq Study Group.

To quote the WP once again: "Some staff members on the National Security Council became enamored of the idea of sending more troops to Iraq in part because it was not a key feature of Baker-Hamilton." You're permitted one guess as to where the NSC got the idea it could formulate key policy based on your-mama-wears-army-boots nose-thumbing.

My daughter's occasionally exasperating immaturity can be forgiven. She's only seven. George is 60.

Bloodless nonsense

"Kabuki dance" has become a fashionable, if not hackneyed, phrase in modern politics: a metaphorical description of equally powerful and opposing forces slowly circling each other, taking each other's measure and generally displaying theatrical splashes of bluff and desire, but little else. This penultimate drama is intended to influence the dance's ultimate outcome -- an orgiastic union, it is hoped, in accommodation and compromise.

Historically it has been an apt little phrase, signifying the subtle power struggles between executive and legislative branches, but alas, no longer. For it takes two to dance the Kabuki tango. And in Mr. Bush, the Democrats have an unwilling, even indifferent, dance partner. Since the administration's immaculate judicial conception, its chief executive has merely glanced at Congress and promptly dismissed the whole lot as unworthy of presidential favors. The new opposing majority hasn't aroused any attitudinal change.

The latest unrequited Kabukism -- that of Democrats blustering as though they're going to get tough on Iraq -- is proof positive that the metaphor is merely an anachronism nestled in pre-9/11 thinking: the idea that Congress -- you remember Congress, that theoretical branch of government with war-declaring and budget authority and all that -- can and will influence Mr. Bush's actions. The reality is that Mr. Bush couldn't care less. His attitude? Let them eat Kabuki.

On the face of it, the Democrats' crooning is impressive indeed. As the Washington Post reported: "House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid declared [Friday in a letter] that 'it is time to bring the war to a close' and warned President Bush that sending more U.S. troops to Iraq would be unacceptable to the Democratic majorities that have just taken over Congress."

Warned. Unacceptable. Sounds pretty tough. It's about to hit the fan, right?

"The letter by Pelosi and Reid sent a signal that the new congressional leadership intends to be aggressive in voicing opposition to Bush's handling of the war." So far, so good, although the verbal phrase of "voicing opposition" comes up short of "voting opposition."

"With their new majorities, they have a bigger political megaphone and more ability to bring pressure to bear." Excellent. But wait. Do we hear a big "but" coming?

"At the same time, Pelosi and Reid have eschewed using the main legislative mechanism to change policy, namely cutting off funding for the war."

The toughness and resolve you first heard? Pure, empty, Kabuki smoke and mirrors; and the hissing sound of Democrats' submissive deflation was surely music to Bush's ears. Why should he dance the drama, buy the wine and the dinner, when all along there was little question he would have his way?

Our democracy must be an unfathomable mystery to those we're introducing it to overseas. Here we were, in the midst of a stupid, unpopular war. We had an election. The voters threw out the party principally responsible for the stupid, unpopular war. The voters voted for the party that promised "to bring the war to a close."

The result of all this democratic disapprobation and demand? The president goes to work on adding more troops to the stupid, unpopular mix. And the new Congress opposed to having any troops in the harmful way of someone else's civil war, let alone the addition of troops, turns and finances the wholesale insanity.

I realize the complexities of our democratic system, especially in a time of war. And I understand those arguments that political scientists would offer -- arguments about the unmitigated difficulty of extrication, the antiwar party's not unreasonable fear of voter susceptibility to martial demagoguery, the inherent and unavoidable struggle between a determined commander in chief and nervous legislators -- and most of all arguments about the essential art of nuance in that power struggle.

But here's the one and only argument that Congressional Democrats must come to understand in today's political environment: Mr. Bush doesn't do nuance. He doesn't get it, doesn't abide it, and Democrats are wasting their trained talents exercising it. Like any bully, Mr. Bush only understands brute, frontal, uncompromising force.

And in that environment Democrats must give up Kabuki dancing and take up Sumo wrestling. No nuance is useful, just as there's no middle ground in war. We're either in one or we're not.