Some Perspective on the Bush Administration Fight Against Terrorism
December 2000: Richard Clarke develops policy paper entitled, "Strategy for Eliminating the Threat from the Jihadist Networks of al Qida: Status and Prospects." It calls for identifying and destroying known Al Qaeda camps and pressuring Pakistan to cooperate in the fight against Al Qaeda.
January 25, 2001: Clarke sends the "Strategy for Eliminating the Threat" document to Condi Rice, noting that "we urgently need … a Principals level review" of the threat posed by Al Qaeda.
September 4, 2001: Condi holds first Principals Committee meeting dedicated to Al Qaeda.
February 14, 2003: The Bush Administration unveils the National Strategy for Combating Terrorism, which includes the objective: "Eliminate terrorist sanctuaries and havens."
July 22, 2004: The 9/11 Commission releases its report. The first recommendation is:
The US government must identify and prioritize actual or potential terrorist sanctuaries. For each, it should have a realistic strategy to keep possible terrorists insecure and on the run, using all elements of national power. We should reach out, listen to, and work with other countries that can help.
June 23, 2006: The Bush Administration announces the indictment of the Liberty City Seven, an alleged terrorist cell the FBI admits is "more aspirational than operational."
August 3, 2007: The Implementing the 9/11 Commission Recommendations Act signed into law. It requires:
(1) REQUIREMENT FOR REPORT ON STRATEGY.—Not later than 90 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, the President shall submit to the appropriate congressional committees a report, in classified form if necessary, that describes the long-term strategy of the United States to engage with the Government of Pakistan to address the issues described in subparagraphs (A) through (F) of subsection (a)(2) and carry out the policies described in subsection (b) in order accomplish the goal of building a moderate, democratic Pakistan.
December 13, 2007: The first trial of the Liberty City Seven ends in a mistrial, with one defendant, Lyglenson Lemorin, acquitted of all charges.
April 16, 2008: The second trial of the Liberty City Seven ends in a mistrial.
April 17, 2008: 87 months after Richard Clarke first insisted that the Bush Administration develop a strategy to combat Al Qaeda, 62 months after the Bush Administration announced its intention to eliminate terrorist sanctuaries, 45 months after the 9/11 Commission called for the Administration to develop a strategy to eliminate terrorist sanctuaries, 258 days after Congress required the Administration to submit a strategy to combat terrorist safe havens in Pakistan within 90 days, and one day after the Bush Administration insisted it may try a group of aspirational terrorists a third time, GAO releases a report finding:
The United States Lacks Comprehensive Plan to Destroy the Terrorist Threat and Close the Safe Haven in Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas
No comprehensive plan for meeting U.S. national security goals in the FATA has been developed, as stipulated by the National Strategy for Combating Terrorism (2003), called for by an independent commission (2004), and mandated by congressional legislation (2007).
The report also states:
al Qaeda is now using the Pakistani safe haven to put the last element necessary to launch another attack against America into place, including the identification, training, and positioning of Western operatives for an attack. It stated that al Qaeda is most likely using the FATA to plot terrorist attacks against political, economic, and infrastructure targets in America "designed to produce mass casualties, visually dramatic destruction, significant economic aftershocks, and/or fear among the population.
(h/t democracy arsenal on the GAO report)
I think Cheney & Boosh must be waiting for the terrorists to strike again in the US so they can play the fear card again. They’ve been very disappointed in Bin Laden so far.
Bob in HI
Hi Marcy. Slightly OT but they wouldn’t have gotten away with so much had it not been for their enablers.
Remember Bush said that he doesn’t think about Bin Laden that much.
A minor edit.
Then there’s this …
GAO Slams Bush on Terrorism – says Al Qaeda attack likely and we have no plan
http://www.democracyarsenal.or…..-bush.html
and
Bush lacks strategy to wipe out bin Laden sanctuary in Pakistan, GAO says
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/sta…..34030.html
and
NIE: Pakistan 2007 is Afghanistan 2001
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpoi…..003706.php
…except for those pesky little nukes.
What?? Are you kidding?? We are sending sorties of drones over the Humboldt pot fields in Northern California because it is dangerous, DANGEROUS I tell you! Those Afghani poppies are nuklar compared to that!
One of Bush’s problems in curtailing terrorist access to their safe havens also explains why he is unable to lead his administration or Congress. He cannot negotiate.
He persuasive skills are limited to giving lobbyists free rein to corrupt agencies intended to regulate them, and giving Congress free access to the treasury to pay for their pet projects (and their re-elections). Alternately, he threatens political destruction. He has no other tools to work with.
Forcibly invading another country that wasn’t already broken, Pakistan is close, even one that doesn’t practically control huge swathes of its own mountains or jungles, requires DIPLOMACY. That requires a fair knowledge of the interests of both parties, and an ability to hone one’s arguments, to play them in a persuasive rhythm so that both sides think they’re getting something dear to them. Shouting and leering are rarely sufficient.
Shouting and leering are rarely sufficient.
But…but…they worked so well when I was a Deke!
Hey, give us a break. There are just so many hours in a day. Toadying up to Cheney and Addington takes a lot of work; and don’t get me started on how much time we wasted covering Gozo’s ass and getting out FISA misinformation not to mention NSA illegal wiretaps and justifying “Enhanced Interrogation”. We just don’t get any respect. It’s really, really hard to continually sucker Congress; that this time, we’ll work with them, trust us. People just don’t understand that increased surveillance and decreased protection against search and seizure is necessary to protect you from terrorists We mean you no harm, not like some people we know.
Is it possible, viewing the disconnect between Bush’s stated goals and his actions, that he does not want to cut off known terrorist groups from their safe havens?
Does Mr. Bush prefer that the source of his claims that we be fearful remain unbound, as if he were Holmes ignoring the known lairs of Professor Moriarty because to close them down or arrest his nemesis would lead to boredom or lowered fame?
Or is Mr. Bush simply incompetent when it comes to performing the principal roles of any chief executive — determining his organization’s priorities and putting them into practice (including actually paying for it)?
I can no longer tell which.
Yes.
Tooshay.
“Tooshay.”
Ah! That’s what it looks like, to wax phonetic.
Bob in HI
May we.
Nope, this isn’t incompetence, IMHO. He either wants to dawdle and be ineffective in this regard from his own motivations, or he has somebody giving him a d**n good reason to do nothing. Something to do with Saudis and oil rise to the surface as a leading possibility. What do you think?
um, i’m a little stupid after that stupidfest of disney-porn last night. please explain the nexxus between Bush, Saudis, oil and inaction. I kust know it will turn out badly (W is sort of King-Midas-in-reverse that way) but I have to know.
Wowza! Via Laura Rozen at War & Piece, a Harper’s review of a new book by Jeff Morley about “Our Man In Mexico” the CIA station chief in the cold war era. The take away is the comparison of the torture tape destruction to the Lee Harvey Oswald tape destruction. Interesting.
The Kim Philby connection should be an eye-opener. Along with Burgess, McLean and Blunt (the Cambridge Spies), he was one of the Soviet’s top agents in the UK from the late thirties to early fifties.
Blunt, of course, was a distant cousin of the present Queen, was outed (so to speak, that’s another story) was outed about the same time as Philby, but remained protected until the mid-seventies. Philby spent several years in Washington.
Given the choice between East and West and what we have become, I am not so sure they did not make the right choice.(although Philby died a raging and disillusioned alcoholic in Russia)
We echo the worst decadence of the Bolsheviks with our own Pravda media and remote dictatorship of the proletariat by the Rethugs. Thank god we have the consumer goods to stave off the revolution*g*
No wonder Marcy is so astute after doing her analysis on the Eastern bloc.It’s what we have become.
Rove and his Clones have certainly made a serious study of how authoritarians dominate their countries, from Rome to Hitler, Stalin and Mao, and copied many of their methods. Goebbels seems to have been one of Rove’s favorite exemplars. Which reveals their complete lack of ethics.
I believe it’s still considered unethical, for example, to cite Nazi medical experiments for the truth of their findings, no matter how novel or accurate. The reasons seem obvious. The cost of ethically and humanely duplicating their research on, say, the effects of hypothermia were small beer compared to the cost of legitimating how they came by it. Rove, in contrast, seems enticed by the manipulation possible from doing the opposite, without admitting it, of course.
For an entirely different take on Philby, read Tim Powers’ “Declare”. Djinns in Moscow and more. So much detail that you wonder, “Naaah. But maybe …”
How many terrorists have we convicted in court?
All of the convictions we have obtained were in court.
How many were there? I think only one, but I’m not sure. As opposed to all the ones in jail awaiting some sort of trial.
Massaoui, Padilla, Reid (shoe bomber), Iyman Faris, Massoud Khan, the Lackawanna six, John Walker Lindh, Umer Hayat…….
bmaz,
The question was how many terrorists have been convicted. To be a terrorist one has to commit an act of terrorism. Other than Reid, which of those folks were convicted of an act of terrorism?
I understand the question, but, sadly in some cases, these people have been convicted in courts of law on terrorism charges. You and I may not consider some of them to be terrorists, but they have been legally so deemed in the United States. If the question is convictions, they are convicted terrorists. You know, I don’t really know what a “terrorist” is; could be about anybody depending on the circumstances and the evaluator’s point of view.
“All of the convictions we have obtained were in court.”
Surely this is wrong, or Guantanamo would be empty.
All of the convictions we have obtained were in Dick Cheney’s office. Every one of them extra-judicial.
Bob in HI
6/8 Rumsfeld was right when he said the WMDs were south of Tikrit – or East of, or West of, or North … you get far enought from Tikrit, you run right into some nukes.
The non-Ashcroft, non-Thompson, non-Comey, non-Gonzales, non-McNulty Republican administration lawyer – Willaim Ruckelshaus – weighs in on his choice for President.
emph added
there’s one for the books
East. Takes you right to Pakistan.
Good catch, Mary! Maybe Obama will listen to him when it comes time to choose an AG. Would you say that Ruck was at least as good as Comey, prolly better?
Bob in HI
Here’s one thing the Bushcrew is doing to help fight terrorism –
From Blue in the Bluegrass a story about a Transylvania Student (yes, he have a university for Vampires in KY – NOT) about to be deported to the Sudan to make us all safer.
When Lino Loboi Joseph Nakwa was 12, he his family were in hiding from warring factions. One day, at a Catholic prayer service, he and his brother were kidnapped and held for a month by the Sudanese People’s Liberation Army. They escaped, made it to a refugee camp (discovered others including their father had been killed)
well, the Dept of Homeland Security will be keeping us safe by deporting Nakwa. This is how he ended up in KY:
Providing assistance and material support to a terrorist organization.
That’s what he’s being tossed out for – thought crimes, vagueness that goes beyond the void and descends into the abyss, retribution against children, shipping Christian refugees off to the Sudan for the ulitmate consequence because they were kidnapped as children – could you be any more proud?
From Masaccio in an EPU post on an earlier thread:
In case no one has answered this question, here is a report on the terrorist trials.(pdf). Here is a summary:
Current Status of All Charges
(1007 Total Charges; 104 Total Statutes)
pending 329
acquitted or dismissed 233
guilty 445
Bullet points:
29%
Conviction rate in prosecutions for
federal crimes of terrorism
17.2 years
Average sentence for individuals
convicted of and sentenced for
federal crimes of terrorism
4.25 years
Average sentence for all individuals
convicted and sentenced in cases
initially announced as terrorism cases
104
Total number of separate criminal
charges used to indict alleged
terrorists
12%
Proportion of terrorism cases that
involved WMDs (the definition of
which includes bombs, grenades,
other explosives, and poison gasses)
0
Number of people affiliated with
any radical Islamic group who have
been charged with plotting to use
chemical, biological, radiological, or
nuclear weapons
That report was discussed in detail in the ABA Journal some time ago.
Do you have a link and/or summary?
I saw your post on these conviction #s a couple days ago. I found myself wondering just what was counted as a conviction/didn’t have time to dig around. Cited conviction #s seem awful high measured against my gut feeling and what I’ve read on the subject during these Bush years.
I strongly suspect whole lot of those convictions were along lines of Mary’s Lino Loboi Joseph Nakwa link up-thread.
I’ve wondered a lot, trying to figure out BushCo’s reason for letting all the Gitmo (and who knows how many others in Iraq/Afganistan) “detainees” linger w/no legal process… particularly given most of ‘em have turned out to be innocents/bystanders and such. There is no benefit that I can see, to GWOT, BushCo reputation, or anything else. Except maybe a nice revenue flow for some contractors here and there. Seems to me, for example, an apology to Maher Arir would do wonders for Junior’s rep, but… ///???
Best I’ve ever came up w/was profound disinterest… they just don’t give a rip.
I couldn’t find the ABA article on-line, the search function for the magazine is useless. I think I pitched my copy of the Journal, but I will check at the office. The article at the link in my earlier comment (quoted by bmaz) is pretty good.
My ABA Journal is gone.
“Cast down your buckets where you are!”
—Booker Taliaferro Washington, 1893
Hey, did you know that when a same post appears in two places at FDL/EW/TBogg, it acquires two different comment tails? *pitying looks from the crowd* *slopes off, muttering*
Heh, even I didn’t know that until a few minutes ago when I discovered the same thing. I would swear that before we suddenly had an influx of people; clearly I am old and completely batty….
Hasn’t happened that way before. I will try to figure out why. I think it was a human error thing.
One of the interesting processes in the flaccid habeas component of the WoT was the short half-life ethnic roundup, one of whose cases lingered in EDNY, evidently where counsel plus a few reporters snapped back at a gaoler who activated recording apparatus surreptitiously during jailhouse colloquy. The judge split the topics in the order, mostly ruling in favor of plaintiffs. It seems like, for a while, there was obliteration of a-c privilege until the executive could sort out the full spectrum of what it was facing. Hibbitts reported on some of the ancillary sources three months ago [Jurist online]. Evidently, NY Law Review has preserved interest in these cases.
Who in Congress reads EW?
Holy Moly…
The House has been unable to figure out how to enforce subpoenas for Bolten & Miers in the USA firings inquiry for what, 9 months now? EPA following suit is not a surprise. Time to vote for contempt of Congress, way past time; EPA leadership is already in contempt of planet.
True, but I’m just hoping that it’s pissing off the Supremes too. Is the administration willing to take on both Congress and the Supreme Court? This is stunning.
That would be my hope as well. IMO BushCo will push until they hit a wall, all the way up to & including SCOTUS.
Congressional walls have been few & far between; let’s see what Markey decides to do.
Wish I could feel stunned about this, in a way. At this point it just seems par for the course…
And Loo Hoo too – Really, it is not surprising in the least (Mary was joshing you; but you knew that). There are only nine months left before they will be out of office and gone; unless Congress will utilize inherent contempt, there is no way these individuals can be held in contempt or otherwise punished and they know it. Simply put, they just don’t care and they know there is nothing that will be done to them. The pathetic part is they are absolutely right. This is exactly why the stated policy of Pelosi and the Democratic leadership to take impeachment out of play was so completely derelict.
Wow. That climate research the EPA is sitting on must be incredibly threatening to their delusions. That, plus they may want it as another Bright Shiny Object with which to distract us ‘lefty bloggers’ and the media from some other sh*t they’re going to pull in a few days.
Which makes one worry about Cheney’s plans for Certain Countries…
So you are not impressed with what the freaking media are insanely reporting as Bush’s 180 degree change of heart on global warming? Jeebus, the stupid out there really does burn doesn’t it? He is proposing the same voluntary horeshit he always have and yet they report it as some big enlightenment and concession. Baffling….,
Hey, the environmental scientist in the Klynn house, has stated that this is not a 180 degree turn for Bush. This is Bush trying to come up with “middle ground” policy for EPA that serves as a “wall” from more lawsuits. He said there are so many other regulatory agencies that environmental lawsuits can be filed through to enforce stronger environmental standards that what Bush has done to the EPA in his tenure makes EPA’s regulatory abilities quite weak in comparison to some of these other regulatory agencies. So people are getting creative and finding other government regulatory avenues to file the lawsuits. Bush is simply trying to shut this down. Press seemed to miss this point and simply praised Bush.
I also think this is a Bush attempt to give a bone to McCain. If Bush can stir an appearance of an environmental policy he may bring those Reps who would “jump” for Al Gore right back to the party. Investors are paying close attention to the “greening” of companies. Greening is the new consumer selling point. I simply think this is Bush trying to package the Reps as the “greening” party. Bush is also under pressure from the G8 to move on green standards…
Dems would do themselves a favor by having a meeting with Portugal. They could simply be inspired by their efforts and vision and get going with a national greening policy planning group of Al Gore and wealthy friends and start funding ventures without government efforts but have a citizen investor base. By setting the policy in the public, the creation of federal policy eventually will follow.
But Dems better think fast.
O/T
A thought I had, to jump back a few threads, have Bill Moyers and friends host a nationally televised debate
For many 18 – 22 year olds, Katrina (Aug 2005) was a seminal political experience. They relate Katrina to global warming, and they know Bu$hCo is self-serving and delusional. This is the same demographic that no longer reads newspapers, but spent vast amounts of time on the Internet and on MySpace and GoogleGroups. The press has to offer quality information if they are to attract those eyeballs.
This isn’t about whether the press has a partisan bias.
To build back their ‘bottom line’, the press has to be credible.
To be credible, they have to give accurate information.
To give accurate information inevitably requires that they reveal Bush’s antics as deceitful.
Exposing Bush’s claims as fraudulent is a bottom line issue, more than a partisan issue.
No one should mistake this as a ‘left wing’ bias; it’s a BOTTOM LINE bias (as in ‘they’d like to keep their jobs).
Bush’s version is so completely out of whack with reality that it simply isn’t something people are willing to pay money to read or watch – whether it’s bullshit smoke-and-mirrors on climate change, or whether it’s the Liberty Seven. People just don’t have time for that kind of bullshit, and its a perilous business model going forward.
I suppose that’s good news…?
That 2003 “Goals and Objectives” document is quite edifying. If I did that poorly meeting my goals and objectives (and like Bush, I pretty much get to define my own), I would get fired. In most of the categories, by the measures he defined, he’s made things worse.
40 – LHP and I have strongly diverging views on that one, but my personal opinion is that there is no comparison and that Ruckelshaus really is someone to admire.
37 – surprise surprise.
earlofhuntington and behindthefall re Kim Philby…why not go direct to source and just read KP’s own [autobio] acccount as retired in Moscow at Colonel’s rank. You will have to google for it, so many years ago forget the title. If you want begin to understand KP, read the classic adventures of his civil-servant-turned-Islamist-father Harry St John in…MIDDLE EAST OIL regions, and his prediction exactly to the year, 25 years later, that an OPEC-like consortium would be established.
BTW, not only did KP reach the top levels of British MilitaryIntel-5 [MI-5]]which is counterintelligence [yikes!], he was involved in establishing the Table Of Organization of the OSS in liaison with Wm. Donovan in Washington [IIRC].
FYI on Private Attorneys General…Just read that a Minnesota union local won the first case to be filed under a new amendment “which allows plaintiffs to act as ‘private attorneys general’” [state amendment to prevailing-wage law].
“The concept of private attorneys general goes back to Civil Rights laws passed after the Civil War and the 1960s. Recognizing that federal and state AGs ofter lack the resources to enforce laws that are in the public interest, private citizens are empowered under that law to act in their place.”
Perhaps the concept can be used to bypass a reluctant DOJ?
There actually are limited instances of that available at the Federal level, although they are not commonly known. Check out Qui Tam actions. Problem is, what we really need goes much more to traditional criminal and quasi-criminal conduct that really is not amenable to any private action scenario.
bmaz-thanks reply.
@ 44 the idea of “derelict” as “failure to act” begs the Q: whatever is Pelosi hiding that prompts such in-your-face dereliction? An observer pondering “Who benefits?” might be an act of self-terrorizing.
Well, there are a lot of theories on that; my best guess is that there is a little more complicity on the part of the Dems in leadership during Bush’s time in office and the leadership now either was in leadership the, or very close to it, so I am referring to them. And then couple that with raw political calculation in the form of maintaining their positions and growing their precious majorities, and there you have it. Insidious, but not as nefarious as many people theorize; however, that does not detract from the extreme degree of dereliction and violation of their oath to office.
I think Mary’s assessment is similar, and I agree. Not speaking for either bmaz or Mary, but only for myself, I am profoundly disgusted by the party I have voted for all of my adult life. They are no longer my heroes or my role models. I hope I set a better example for those who know me.
My pantheon of Democrats, mixed though they may be, includes Barbara Jordan and Paul Wellstone. For about the past 3 years, Al Gore has looked better than he used to (he made too many compromises during his presidential campaign), and I remain hopeful about Obama. But it seems that too many of the rest have become corrupted.
Sadly,
Bob in HI
Bush DOJ and Bush Condi have been total failures in the so-called terrorism fight. The only real significant impact has been the disruption of the everyday lives of innocent Americans.
DOJ’s prosecution record in so-called terrorism trials has been a lopsided failure, partially because the defendants in many of them have been totally innocent.
DOJ’s settlment payment to Attorney Brandon Mayfield is a case in point.
Farnsworth, you worthless lout, you whoreson, you cur, you barbarian..
Thou throwest a 95 mile aspirin tablet at Manny’s noggin..
Be wise and leave.
Ah, sweet revenge.
We meet again in July.
I have wondered about this report in terms of the overall “terror” picture…
The whole report here:
http://www.defenselink.mil/new…..x?id=27021
I love the timelines here – really gives you a picture – not that I want to make work for anyone, but…so what WAS going on between Jan., 2001 and Sept. 4th? Hmmm? Was it the Dick Cheney energy meetings?
At Jack Balkin’s, Mark Graber offers this insipid snark in support of John Yoo’s March 2003 Torture Memo: “[L]et me suggest that [Yoo’s] claims are constitutionally plausible or as plausible as most of what I read when I read legal materials.” Or as the Oxford historian Alan Bullock once wrote, Hitler wasn’t really much different than the average German.
Commentator Nick Jackson observes a political purpose for such defenses of the indefensible:
[emph. added]
http://balkin.blogspot.com/200…..ional.html
In essence, this is academe adopting Karl Rove’s strategem of publicly haranguing his critics with non-denial denials such as “there’s no evidence for that” (which avoids the perjury inducing construction, “I did not do that”), in order to get opponents to reveal what thy know. The point is to inform Karl of how much he has to worry about or how much he ought to admit when making his third or fourth visit to the grand jury. All very scholarly, Prof. Graber.
Speaking of insipid, if O/T remarks, Bobo today describes Sen. Obama as,
– furiously courting
– exhausted
– conventional
– orthodox liberal
in his first sentence. I can’t bear to read more. I wouldn’t have read that much if the New York Times started publishing responsibly and stopped insisting on bracketing the likes of Paul Krugman with reliably conservative views, as if he were a dangerously attractive 14 year-old at her first sock hop. But then, perhaps that’s how the newspaper of record [sic] gets anyone to read him at all.
One would think the Times was working as hard to avoid incurring Karl’s wrath (even in “retirement”) as much as Roger Ailes slaves to court it.
maryo2 – Spain was a Member of the Coalition of the Willing from 4/03 to 4/04, when they withdrew their troops from Iraq.
So, the Madrid Train Bombing, 3/04, a month before Spain’s withdrawal, was a very ‘timely’ event for BushCo!
What If…
…Comey ‘knew’ in advance that Madrid was going to happen and tried to warn Bush, but Bush made the decision to ’sit on it’ – so the Spaniards would be ‘taught a lesson’ in what it costs to Defy the Protections of the UE?
Of course, this is all speculative, but, if true, I wonder where Bush could have gotten the idea to ’sit on’ intell and ‘let things happen’ – even with the fore-knowledge of many deaths?
Maybe Bush and his Cronies think every Country needs its Pearl Harbor, huh?
OT…and speaking of the EPA blowing off subpoenas, here’s another enormous surprise, this time from Robert Luskin. Via TP:
Rove’s Lawyer Backtracks on Testimony Promise, Hints Rove will Hide Behind Exec. Privilege
Color me as shocked as Capt. Renault in Casablanca.
Think about this…
If Bush the UE can ‘out’ one of Our real spies, then Couldn’t he also ‘hide’ someone else’s real spies, too?
What’s to stop Bush from waving his Magic Wand over Condi and saying “She has my protection and is, therefore, Above the Law and beyond even questioning.”
This seems important because Either Condi ’sat on’ the 911 Warnings – and if so, very possibly as an ‘Agent’ of a Foreign Government (no American would ‘do’ that to US!) – or Bush ’sat on’ the 911 Warnings, and told her and everyone else in the inner circle to just ‘let things happen’ – at which point, Condi’s poolboy Zelikow was brought in to ‘mole’ the 911 Commission…
In the opening of Hamlet, the shimmering ghost of the King is seen by the watchful guards…
Marcellus: Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.
Horatio: Heaven will direct it.
Marcellus: Nay, let’s follow him.
There are days I wonder if it’s Hamlet or Macbeth we’re stuck in.
Comedy of Errors used to come to mind. Not any more.
MarieRoget – If it were MacBeth, Bush would undoubtedly be Lady MacBeth:
“Come, you spirits
That tend on mortal thoughts! unsex me here,
And fill me from the crown to the toe, top-full
Of direst cruelty; make thick my blood,
Stop up the access and passage to remorse,
That no compunctious visitings of nature
Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between
The effect and it! Come to my woman’s breasts,
And take my milk for gall, you murdering ministers,
Wherever in your sightless substances
You wait on nature’s mischief!”
~ Lady Macbeth, Act I, scene v
Ah, but let’s not forget Macbeth’s soliloquy that begins, “She should have died hereafter etc, etc.” Hard not to think of GWB in the often quoted “Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage & then is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound & fury, signifying nothing.”
Still, the idea of Bush in drag as Lady Macbeth trying to dry wash the blood off his hands….umm, yeah.