April 22, 2004
REALITY LOOKED AT
The Guardian’s Jonathan Freedland dissects last week’s Bush/Blair press conference:
Naturally, Bush went first with a rapid-fire series of statements that stand at almost surreal odds with the truth. "Iraq will be free, Iraq will be independent," he promised, just as soon as the "transfer of sovereignty" is complete on June 30. But look at the reality.
Yes. Let’s look at the reality. Here are Bush’s exact words:
Our nations face a stark choice:Britain and America and our allies can either break our word to the people of Iraq, abandon them in their hour of need and consign them to oppression; or we can help them defeat the enemies of a free Iraq and build the institutions of liberty.
The prime minister and I have made our choice. Iraq will be free, Iraq will be independent, Iraq will be a peaceful nation and we will not waver in the face of fear and intimidation.
Bush, whose comments clearly refer to the ultimate goal in Iraq rather than anything associated with the transfer of sovereignty, doesn’t get around to mentioning June 30 for another 176 words. Speaking of the wilfully wrong, here’s Mark Morford:
There comes a time. There comes a time in every raw dumb imperfect beleaguered human's life when s/he has to face the music and pay the piper and fess up to his or her crimes and misdemeanors and blatant careening flubs and heartless gaffes and whoa where the hell was my brain that time sorry sorry sorry.
But then there's Dubya. He is, apparently, immune. He is perfect and flawless and without the slightest taint of guilt or error, and, despite looking like a bowl of Jell-O salad in a universe of divine tiramisu, he is, apparently, an angel of purity and light. It's true.
For here is Dubya, mumbling his way through another shockingly insulting news conference just recently, screwing up both his face and his intelligence data (again) and still a-huntin' for nonexistent WMDs in Iraqi turkey farms (?) as reporter after reporter asks him, point blank, why he won't simply come clean.
Morford is hopeless. Click on the link that he provides, and his blatant careening flub is revealed:
"They could still be there. They could be hidden, like the 50 tons of mustard gas in a turkey farm," said Bush, referring to Libya's voluntary disclosure of weapons in March.
That’s Libya, stupid. Not Iraq. Libya.
(Both items via contributor J.F. Beck, currently on one big blunder-hunting bender.)
Posted by Tim Blair at April 22, 2004 02:19 PMWell, perhaps Morford is somewhat deaf, and heard "Libya" as "Dubya".
Nah! Morford is just stupid.
Posted by: JeffS at April 22, 2004 at 02:32 PMIt was not 50 tonnes of mustard gas, it was 30-odd. And none of it was found on a turkey farm.
Posted by: Robert at April 22, 2004 at 02:58 PMEh. What's the difference? Iraq. Libya. They're all being repressed by hegemonic American culture.
Now if only Dubya would try to see the world with such nuance we'd be alright.
Posted by: Julia at April 22, 2004 at 02:59 PMOnly 30 tonnes? Whew! And, I thought it was dangerous or something.
Posted by: Reid at April 22, 2004 at 03:00 PMWTF ?
I thought we were rid of this drooling KY monkey ?
Posted by: Carl in N.H. at April 22, 2004 at 03:00 PMThere's just something about lies involving turkeys that makes them spread like wildfire, apparently.
Posted by: Big Dog at April 22, 2004 at 03:17 PMBlatant careening flub. I would bet good money that Morford could not accurately define the first two of those words. From context, he probably means 'flagrant' for the first - that is, conspicuously offensive. As for the second, I can't really parse it, as neither 'careening' (laying a boat on its side to scrape its hull) nor 'careering' (as in plunging headlong) makes any sense to someone who isn't writing for a purportedly serious publication after five killer bong hits.
Most people can't purposefully write as badly as Mark Morford. Look at that second, appalling run-on sentence in Tim's excerpt. That is not a piece of writing that should have been allowed past an editor, ever.
I thought we were rid of this drooling KY monkey ?
I've been meaning to post about that on my blog, but forgot (er, not that anyone would read it there).
According to the East Bay Express, as linked to here by Eamonn Fitzgerald, Morford was suspended for writing ... may I have the envelope please? ... "Fuck".
Nope, wudn't about child molestation, but naughty words. Eamonn Fitzgerald usually has his head on straight, but here displays some support for Morford. I can only conclude he is not familiar with Morford's oeuvre (as in, "When you go out into the pasture, be careful not to step in the horse d'oeuvre").
I'll bet Morford says, "where the hell was my brain" a lot. Hey, it just occurred to me who Morford reminds me of---Tim Benzedrine, from Bored of the Rings.
Posted by: Angie Schultz at April 22, 2004 at 03:29 PMDavid: you sound surprised by Morford's horrific writing. Perhaps it's your first encounter with his work. Perhaps it has inspired you to hunt up some more and discover just how bad it can get.
Trust me, you'd be better off just peeling your conjunctiva like an onion skin.
Posted by: Joe Geoghegan at April 22, 2004 at 03:33 PM
And then and divinity and glass dildo and Dubya and BushCo and feathers and ticklish and hot fudge and Halliburton and, ohmygod, Mary Cheney and Rummy and conciousness and farmer's markets and rolling naked and smoking clove cigarettes!
Not 'Iraqi' turkey farm, dimwit, it was a 'Plastic' turkey farm!
Sheesh. I think he needs a hearing aid.
Posted by: Syl at April 22, 2004 at 04:05 PMKinda like the Grauniad line, which of course applies to lots of their own fine work much more than anything Dubya has ever said -- "at almost surreal odds with the truth." In fact, it sadly and ominously describes a very large portion of media coverage of anything in the MidEast.
“...still a-huntin' for nonexistent WMDs in Iraqi turkey farms...”
That ol’ turkey just itchin’ to fly, to fly! Can’t keep ol’ Quetzal down.
It turned out that it was 30 tons of mustard gas & elsewhere in Libya than the turkey farm, but the President’s minor error on that point tells you that turkey farm fixed itself in his mind, surmisably because he misses those plastic turkey hysterics, just like he enjoyed Comical Ali. (And this here is plastic turkey myth-tracker central. I think W’s been here.)
Posted by: ForNow at April 22, 2004 at 04:10 PMMorford was briefly suspended from SFgate but he's holding on there obviously, like that last smear of dogshit you can never quite get off your shoe.
Morford is the reason more than anything else I'm praying fo a second Bush term, I'm hoping Morford's head will explode.
And what the hell was that mustard gas for, Morford, turky riot supression? Scumbag.
Posted by: Amos at April 22, 2004 at 05:06 PMI just found this on Allahpundit - it's worse than Morford, if you can imagine.
Posted by: Yehudit at April 22, 2004 at 08:26 PMWhat an eloquent prose stylist! I hade tears in my eyes at this line:
They are your enemy. Lungs filled with depleted uranium, they insist upon returning to the battlefield.
Tears of laughter that is. What a goddamn idiot.Then I read thisand stopped laughing
Stop feeling bonded with the majority of Americans; avoid applauding troops and Al Franken smell-a-likes, pray for an early, decisive U.S. defeat.
Fucking scumbag. Is it alright if I pray for an early, decisive onset of lymphoma on your part? No?
Stop stopping yourself because you don't have a full-fledged alternative for what you want to eliminate or change.
Of course not.
Posted by: amos at April 22, 2004 at 09:06 PMTiramisu? I thought all the imbeciles had moved onto pretending they like something else! Sleepless in Seattle was ridiculing them in, what, 1953?
Posted by: Otter at April 22, 2004 at 10:41 PMHmm. Lungs filled with depleted uranium. OK, average lung volume of a superfit Imperialist killbot: six liters, say. Density of uranium, around the 19,000 kg per cubic metre mark. Mass of lungs: 114 kg = 251 lbs. Well, I certainly wouldn't want to have to carry that lot around.
Posted by: David Gillies at April 23, 2004 at 03:53 AMWhat I find amazing is that the link to the Reuters story provided, in the course of supposedly showing up Bush's mistakes, repeats the lie that they just can't let go of.
His decision came after a Bush claim that Iraq had sought uranium from Niger was shown to be based on forged documents.Wrong! Bush claimed that Iraq sought uranium from North Africa, not Niger, and it was based on British intelligence not the forged documents. Is this "news" agency really in a position to be lecturing anybody on mistakes? Posted by: Bill at April 23, 2004 at 05:06 AM