Bush, Biden and Weasel Words

I can't decide whether I think Bush or Biden sucks more right now.

Today, CNN is running the report of Bush admitting he is responsible for invading Iraq and that "much of the intelligence turned out to be wrong." He went on to say:

"As president I am responsible for the decision to go into Iraq. And I'm also responsible for fixing what went wrong by reforming our intelligence capabilities. And we're doing just that."

"My decision to remove Saddam Hussein was the right decision,"..."Saddam was a threat and the American people, and the world is better off because he is no longer in power."

I cannot fault The Carpetbagger's analysis of this weasel worded mea non culpae:

This isn't exactly a concession that we went to war under false pretenses; Bush has acknowledged the problems with pre-war intelligence many times before. It's always a treat to hear the president use the "I am responsible" phrase, but the comments appear to be little more than the same buck-passing the White House has always embraced.

Indeed, the bigger issue is not that Bush has publicly conceded that "much of the intelligence turned out to be wrong," but rather that he doesn't much care whether it was right or not.

Bush effectively admitted that whether the intelligence about the Iraqi "threat" was correct is largely irrelevant. He said it himself: if he knew at the time that there were no WMDs, no nuclear program, no unmanned drones, etc., he'd still "make the decision again." There's no other way to interpret this, other than to conclude the president doesn't much care whether the intelligence was faulty or reliable.

Indeed, this is yet another of Bush's great "mistakes? I make no mistakes," moments. The word "responsibility" means never having to say you're sorry.

Yet, had the Prezi-didn't watched Charlie Rose's show on PBS last night he would have been pleased to hear Senator Joe Biden offer him yet another out. Biden placed all the blame for any mistakes in Iraq squarely on the heads of Rumsfeld and Cheney - telling Charlie Rose that neither of them had ever proven correct in their advice or predictions (no rose-petals, no WMD, no last corners, the army we have etc. etc.) and should be fired. He then went on, unbelievably, to say that he personally liked George Bush and still hoped that he could shake of his bad advisors and be the great President he had the potential to be. I am hoping that Media Matters will obtain the footage of this remarkable weaseling, to be preserved for posterity.

Biden obviously doesn't give a crap about Bush's tax cuts for the rich while cutting services for the poor. He doesn't care about the meltdown of America's healthcare system over which Bush has presided. He obviously doesn't care at all about the National Guardsmen arriving home from Iraq who get caught by the changes to the bankruptcy system he sponsored. Nor does he care about the many different ways in which Bush has personally enabled the extremist mullahs of the religious right and the rape of everything from the environment to worker's pensions by the corporate right.

And Biden still has the unmitigated gall to call himself a Democrat and to consider running for President under a Democratic banner. Either he and his ilk should leave the Party or the Party should leave him and his kind.