"Dead Fish Day"


Sorry for the slow updates--it's been a surprisingly busy Friday here. From WIIIAI, a link to this op-ed from the Guardian's Simon Hoggart:

The president looked like a hooked fish with its head hammered by a humane angler. But he always does. Yesterday he looked even worse. He has moved from the riverbank to the fishmonger's slab. After the midterms and the Baker report on Iraq (executive summary: "We screwed up. Now let's get out"), he has been called a dead man walking. Yesterday he resembled a dead fish twitching.
As for Tony Blair, his mad staring eye was on view again. It hops from socket to socket when he is under strain; yesterday it was the left eye that stared wildly out.

I followed the Bush-Blair presser on television. This is because I believe that in political reporting, being there is no substitute for watching on TV, like the overwhelming majority of people. And not because the Guardian is too mean to pay my fare to Washington. No way.

Our prime minister looked pretty rough. But he was James Bond at the poker tables compared with the president. At the best of times - and these are not the best of times - Bush finds it hard to find the right words, so he thrashes about in the hope that some will pop into his head, like wasps into a jam jar. (At one point he called the sectarian attacks in Iraq "unsettling". It's a word, I suppose.)

After one long question the president said: "I'm getting older, so you're going to have to repeat the second part of your question."

We can all sympathise. You invade a country, and you're blowed if you can remember why you went in the first place!

His replies grew longer. We were not listening to a coherent argument - instead we were floating down Dubya's stream of consciousness, hitting a rock, bashing into overhanging branches.

Asked if he could admit he was wrong, he began a meandering reply. "I do know we have not succeeded as fast as we hoped. I know that progress has not been so rapid ... I am disappointed by the pace of success."

Alongside Hirohito's concession after Hiroshima - "the war has developed not necessarily to Japan's advantage" - we can now add another majestic euphemism, "disappointed by the pace of success".

American presidents tend to be elected through having the right soundbites. But this was sound chewing, like watching some old geezer on his porch endlessly working over the same wad of tobacco.

The two men did have a problem. The Iraq Study Group's report was, from their point of view, a stinker. But they can't say so. The grown-ups have spoken. So they constantly repeated how grateful they were for the Baker report. "I read it," the president told us (What? Even before the pop-up version was out?). "Our guest" - here he waved an arm at Tony Blair, possibly having forgotten his name - "also read it. It is important. It is a report written by a commission. They are busy people, yet they took nine months off, they went to Iraq, they talked to a lot of people ... " He was overwhelmed by their amazing thoroughness.

Through the fog of verbiage it became clear that there were two separate press conferences. The president thinks he can still win. "We are going to prevail. I know we may have to adjust, but we are going to prevail."

Tony Blair believes that now the only key is the Israel-Palestine conflict, which is why he is heading there shortly before Christmas.

The great joy of being a world leader is that there will always be room at the inn. So he can watch cable TV if no one will see him.