Tuesday, August 21, 2007

SPP wraps, Georgie speaks, I still don't get it

The dreadful and mysterious SPP Summit in Montebello wrapped up this morning with a little presser. All three leaders gave a spiel, then... questions! The first one was for Georgie, as it always is (We're Number One!), and it was about recent talk of ousting Maliki, since his Iraqi parliament has been as useless as tits on a bull. Certainly that relates to the security aspect of the summit in that the clusterfuckalicious Iraqi imbroglio is a major threat to that very thing.

Georgie did a little trash-talking about the Iraqi parliament... there are "frustrations" with it, and -- oh yeah! Then he really got it on, in Full Georgie flight, arms waving as he blathered semi-coherently about young democracies, ideological struggles (you know, struggles between good and struggles between evil), terrorist safe havens etc., and ended with:

"I told you the other day at a press conference -- I don't know if you were there or not -- but if you don't believe it's in American interests to be there, you won't find any political reconciliation that is -- that is worth defending. If you do think it's in our interests, our security interests, then you'll be able to see political reconciliation taking place, some at the top and some at the bottom.

"Now, Ambassador Crocker and General Petraeus will be coming back to brief the Congress in about a month's time, and I'm looking forward to hearing their briefing. And I would hope that members of Congress from both political parties listen very carefully to the report they bring back, as we all make decisions about what's best for our national security in regards to this one theater in the war against the extremists and radicals."

Huh. What on earth was he talking about? An Uncomfortable Silence was broken by President Calderon, talking about Hurricane Dean. I'm not sure how this related to what Georgie was saying... I think Calderon was trying to say "Let's move this thing the fuck along, you guys, I've got a hurricane to deal with back home."

During a little discussion about Arctic sovereignty, Georgie bit the back of Steve's neck to let him know who was Top Dog -- he pretty much came right out and said "Fuck Canadian Arctic sovereignty, that there belongs to the US of A. You can have a couple of the islands, but that's it." Harper should have drilled him right then and there.

Someone with some balls asked something to the effect of "Can you say that this is not a prelude to a North American Union, like in Europe" with bonus points for adding a remark about the SPP's lack of transparency. Harper talked about the content of jelly beans, but Georgie really shone here, talking about how "comical" and "amusing" it was that "there are some who would like to frighten our fellow citizens..." Really. He said that with a straight face.

And another reporter suggested that Canada might withdraw from Afghanistan in 2009, and wanted to know if Georgie thought we'd done our job and fulfilled our duty there. Who gives a fiddler's fart what Georgie thinks? By 2009 he'll be a grease spot on the political highway. He should have just said so: '2009? Not my job, man.' But instead he waxed poetic about the Ideological Struggle, girls getting education, women having rights. I love it when a misogynist prick like Bush plays the womens' rights card. While his best buddies in Saudi Arabia won't even let women drive, and his version of SCOTUS just invited themselves into the crotches of the women of his own nation. Spare me, crusher!

SPP is something I'm concerned about, but I really don't get it well enough to blog intelligently about it, so all you'll get here is my snarly commentary about things like the fact that all three SPP amigos were dressed (almost) exactly the same this morning. (Ha! It's true!) For real information, you must go to Creekside.

ETA: Pictorial goodness of the 3 Amigos in all their (almost) look-alike glory.


EDITED AGAIN to add: Some good SPP-related snark at Dependable Renegade (you might have to scroll down a bit).