JABbering Stooge

From an MSRNC article on the deployment of the USS John C. Stennis carrier group to the Persian Gulf:

Some among the audience of Dubai-based diplomats and analysts complained that American wars in the Middle East were already threatening the region’s stability and asked Burns to sort out Iraq and the Israel-Palestinian conflict before turning attention to Iran.

“What we are not interested in is another war in the region,” Mohammed al-Naqbi, who heads the Gulf Negotiations Center, told [U.S. undersecretary of state for political affairs Nicholas] Burns. “Iraq is your problem, not the problem of the Arabs. You destroyed a country that had institutions. You handed that country to Iran. Now you are crying to Europe and the Arabs to help you out of this mess.”

You see, the people and countries with the most direct stake in what happens in Iraq clearly see what the Bush administration either cannot, or will not see - that the Iraq debacle is the Pretzeldunce’s fault, no one else’s, and that it is Bush’s responsibility to clean up his own mess. Yet all the Bushies care about is nuking Iran. God help us all.

What would I like the Pretzeldunce to say in the State of the Union speech tonight? Short of admitting all the crimes he’s committed - from illegal warrantless wiretaps in violation of FISA to torture at Gitmo and Abu Ghraib and suspending habeas corpus - and announcing his resignation - something that will only happen when hell freezes over, and maybe not even then - I would like to see the following:

• An announcement that he will actually follow the recommendations of the Baker-Hamilton commission, and actually talk to the countries we have a beef with, rather than arrogantly threatening to nuke them.

• Offering a plan to reduce our dependence on foreign oil - a real plan involving promotion of renewable resources, rather than just kickbacks to the Slixxon-Mobils of the world.

• A commitment to making prescription drugs affordable to anyone who needs them, not just the upper 0.00000001%. This means revoking his threat to veto the House’s drug price negotiation legislation.

• A true plan for real peace in the Middle East - not this damn-fool idealistic crusade to convert Muslims by the sword to Christianity, as Pope Benedict Arnold I clearly wants.

Those are just a few of the things I can think of offhand. Unfortunately, they have as much chance of coming to pass as this authoritarian dunce stepping down as president (not that a President Perma-Sneer would be much better).

As for me, I’ll be watching the SOTU with the Austin chapter of Drinking Liberally. I’ll try to have pics later.

From Chris over at AMERICAblog:

I understand the fired part, but $14 million to walk away? Great for Pressler for negotiating package like that but why do corporate boards continue to pay failures so handsomely? Recently the Home Depot CEO was given the boot and received over $200 million. Again, great negotiations and everyone agreed to this though I find this disturbing in the context of their failures as CEOs. That a CEO has a lot more responsibility and stress and can make a big difference in the performance of a company, sure, but I am not very convinced that for all of the CEO pay excess, companies and shareholders are really seeing a positive difference. The pool of true difference makers is very small.

I also take issue with corporates who find it necessary to bathe their CEOs in riches while stripping or reducing employees - even well paid, well educated employees- of what used to be standard benefits. With so many failures like Pressler or Nardelli cashing in, what will it take for the public and more importantly corporate boards, to say enough?

Yep. CEOs get rewarded for running their companies into the ground, while the grunts get the shaft yet again. Ain’t completely unregulated capitalism great?