randomWalks

It's nice that we have people like George Will to tell us what our woefully inarticulate President actually means when he spouts off shit like that.

Will does not so much conclude that Bush isn't a racist as assert it: "So the president seemed to be saying that white is, and brown is not, the color of Americans' skin. He does not mean that." He doesn't have any arguments or supporting evidence to point to this view, and he has no way of knowing that Bush "does not mean that."

Where does Will conclude that people who practice the Muslim faith cannot self-govern? I didn't see that in the article. Are you inferring it from his references to America "constructing a liberal democracy" or "our ability to wield political power to produce the requisite cultural change in a place such as Iraq"?

He seemed reluctant to come out and say it explicitly, but that was the message I took away from the entire piece. Perhaps most strongly here:

Speaking of culture, as neoconservative nation-builders would be well-advised to avoid doing, Pat Moynihan said: "The central conservative truth is that it is culture, not politics, that determines the success of a society. The central liberal truth is that politics can change a culture and save it from itself." Here we reach the real issue about Iraq, as distinct from unpleasant musings about who believes what about skin color.

Suggesting that the real issue about Iraq is that the culture may not be able to support a democracy and thus our efforts in that direction are doomed. To me anyway.

To me it sounds like Bush is attempting to say something that he doesn't actually understand or believe.

He's trying to say that Iraqis have a right to self-rule. And he's trying to pose himself as the defender of the Iraqi's right to self-determination.

Of course how you can do that while leading an OCCUPATION of that country is a pretty big hole in that argument.

Moreover, Bush's rhetoric since 9/11 has had racism at its heart.

* You're with us or against us.

* Terrorists (read Arabs) are trying to kill us because they hate our freedoms and they don't value lives as much.

* Terrorists are the ones shooting back in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In trying to suddenly come out as a defender of self-determination, Bush is coming out all muddled, as usual, with a big, giant dose of racism mixed in.

In reality, the LEFT should be talking about Iraqi self-determination. But right now so much of the left is actually defending occupation but asking for it to look differently.

Since the Left has ceded the position that Iraqis deserve self-determination, it seems like the right is trying to co-opt that argument. Only Bush here has fucked it up royally.

zagg, you ever read The Bush Dyslexicon? It basically says what you're saying about how Bush speaks--that he has real problems making sense when he talks about things he doesn't totally believe in, but gains an order of magnitude in coherence and focus when he talks about killing people.

No. I never have read that. That's fucked up.

By the way, there's another discussion of this same quote going on at dru's place.

I posted the same comment there.

I think my initial statement is too lenient on Bush's racism.