World's shortest meeting

By Carl

Headline today: Bush Prepares Crisis Briefings to Aid Obama:

WASHINGTON — The White House has prepared more than a dozen contingency plans to help guide President-elect Barack Obama if an international crisis erupts in the opening days of his administration, part of an elaborate operation devised to smooth the first transition of power since Sept. 11, 2001.

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Mr. Bush said Tuesday that a top priority in his final days in office is to help Mr. Obama get ready to govern. "We care about him," he said in an interview with CNN. "We want him to be successful, and we want the transition to work."

The subtitle should read "Everything I Know About What's Going On In The World." It should be written on a fucking gum wrapper.

Seriously, can anyone think of a President who, after eight fucking years in office, is so embarrassingly unprepared for the job???

When Bill Clinton handed the reins of power over to George W. Bush, his staff spent weeks alerting Bush's staff to the troubles they perceived in the world: Al Qaeda, a coming recession, Korea, China, the rise of Russia.

Bush played golf. He cleared brush. And his staff took their cues from the Moron-In-Chief and likewise ignored nearly every single warning -- rumour has it that Condi Rice perked up only when Russia and China were mentioned. The hubris exhibited in the following eight years was on display before the Oval Office phone was cold.

We could play the "if only" game for years with Bush: if only he had listened to warnings about Al Qaeda, if only he had listened to his dad about Iraq, if only he had realized that Saddam Hussein was contained under the embargo, if only...

If only 8,000 Americans, roughly half of them civilians, could be alive today, and another 100,000 soldiers uninjured, rather than providing an object lesson in the foolishness of war in general and invasions in particular.

If only the SCOTUS had selected Al Gore.

If I were Barack Obama, I'd give Chimpy fifteen minutes... squeeze him in between smokes and a game of hoops...to let him explain what he thinks the consequences of what he has wrought upon the world will be. Yes, he publicly says that, in the end, a free and democratic Iraq will yaddayaddayadda, but I call bullshit. I suspect Bush has sat up nights in the second term thinking, "Holy shit, what have I done?"

Maybe not many, but even if he did that even once, it would be enough for me.

It seems clear from Obama's picks and the rapidity of them that he's aware that he has to hit the ground running. It's a scary world out there and the economic crisis is a megaphone for terrorists and unrest, which means the violence in the world is only going to increase.

In case the lesson of Mumbai was lost on you. Poverty breeds contempt and fear and anger. Imagine what famine and pestilence will breed.

So goodbye, George. You are the weakest link.

(Cross-posted at Simply Left Behind.)