Bush: A Good No Surprise

It's been a few days now, but not too late to note that Bush didn't offer any high profile last-minute pardons.  I'll give him credit:  he's been consistent about being pretty stingy with those.  No Scooter.  No Dick.  No Whole CIA.  etc.

So, for once in his administration, the rule of law will stand.

Inauguration Day, Part 3

A bit of "live blogging" here...

Bush walking down to the ceremony as they are doing the introductions looks terrible.  Like he's sick or being arrested.

Cheney looks like he still has something evil up his sleeve.

Bush manages to smile as he's introduced.

Biden looks like he's going to burst but he's trying to keep it under control.

As usual, Laura Bush's lipstick contrasts way too much with the rest of her face.  I've always thought that looked bizarre. 

Is that a genuine laugh from Cheney???


Biden seriously wants a high five, but has to restrain himself to more decorous hugs.

Obama walking down the hall looks like he's got a million things on his mind, including excitement, and he's doing everything he can to control it.  The expression changes so rapidly...

Man there's a lot of people there....

Now on the stage, BHO looks like he's got it under control again...

Inauguration Day, Part 1

All this reminds me...

What were people thinking in 2004?  Voting for Bush in 2000 was reasonable.  The country certainly (and reasonably) had Clinton-fatigue.

But by 2004, Bush was a known quantity.  How could half of us have missed that?

Remember, it wasn't too long after that when the scales finally started to fall from our eyes.  Maybe it was a testament to Rove, et al. that they held it together just long enough to get through Nov 2004.

Do-Overs

(I apologize for the delay here.  Got completely swamped at work for a while.)

The Bush "Exit Interviews" have started.  The one with Charlie Gibson had a section that just rang like nails on a blackboard:

GIBSON: You've always said there's no do-overs as President. If you had one?

BUSH: I don't know -- the biggest regret of all the presidency has to have been the intelligence failure in Iraq. A lot of people put their reputations on the line and said the weapons of mass destruction is a reason to remove Saddam Hussein. It wasn't just people in my administration; a lot of members in Congress, prior to my arrival in Washington D.C., during the debate on Iraq, a lot of leaders of nations around the world were all looking at the same intelligence. And, you know, that's not a do-over, but I wish the intelligence had been different, I guess.

GIBSON: If the intelligence had been right, would there have been an Iraq war?

BUSH: Yes, because Saddam Hussein was unwilling to let the inspectors go in to determine whether or not the U.N. resolutions were being upheld. In other words, if he had had weapons of mass destruction, would there have been a war? Absolutely.

GIBSON: No, if you had known he didn't.

BUSH: Oh, I see what you're saying. You know, that's an interesting question. That is a do-over that I can't do. It's hard for me to speculate.

Reading between the lines here in the last few sentences: he was going to go to war anyway.  Any reasonable person who was serious about the WMD justification for going to war in Iraq could easily answer Gibson's question.  "If we had known Iraq had no WMD, we would not have started a war."  This shows once again that the WMD explanation was just a pretense.