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Maureen Dowd, The New York Times, June 20, 2007

WASHINGTON – Would Carmela, she of the pans of baked ziti and casseroles of veal parm, ever deny the omnivorous Tony onion rings?

Nah.

But the Carmela-Tony pact was a lot less strict than the Hillary-Bill pact.

Besides, this is a Hillaryized Carmela, or a Carmelized Hillary, so Bill Clinton must munch carrot sticks in their diner scene.

Actually, Hillary’s probably playing Tony, since she’s the one studying the songs on the jukebox and checking out a cruel-looking stranger at the counter.

Either way, the Clintons joined forces yesterday in a comic sendup of that last scene of “The Sopranos,” complete with a Journey soundtrack and an exchange about how Chelsea would be joining them once she got past her parallel-parking problems.

The satire was a video on Hillary’s Web site to whip up attention for the winner of her online contest to choose a campaign song.

Unfortunately, the winner, “You and I,” is definitely not for you and me. (I look forward to Obama’s new campaign ditty, “I Am Thou.”) It doesn’t bode well for the cultural health of the country that Hillary picked a song by Celine Dion, who combines the worst of Vegas and Canada.

It was an acid flashback to the cultural wasteland of Bill Clinton’s reign, when instead of Pablo Casals, we got Kenny G.

During the 1992 campaign, young Clinton aides obsessed on how they could get the boss to change from Fleetwood Mac’s “Don’t Stop (Thinking About Tomorrow)” to something hipper and less baby-boomer middlebrow. Even Christine McVie, one of the band’s singers who wrote the song, said it might be better as a jingle for an insurance company.

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President Bush was so buoyed by the warm reception he was given in Albania that he immediately gave all 3 million Albanians American citizenship, provided they learn Spanish. The offer was withdrawn when Bush found out most Albanians haven’t broken any U.S. laws.

Bush keeps claiming he’s dying to enforce the border, but he just can’t do it unless we immediately grant amnesty to 12 million illegal aliens. I wonder if that worked on Laura Bush:

Laura: George, it’s time you quit drinking.

George: OK, honey, let’s discuss it over cocktails.

How about Bush enforce the border and then we’ll discuss his amnesty plan?

He assures us that granting amnesty to millions of illegal immigrants already here won’t inspire millions more to run across the border because … he’s going to put infrared lights at the border!

Well, that’s a relief. What precisely will infrared lights do again? This is worse than those fake cameras they sell at hardware stores to make it look like you have cameras outside your house. We still need something or someone — say, a wall or a Border Patrol agent — to stop the Mexicans illegally crossing the border as we watch them on the infrared cameras.

Bush won’t build a wall and he keeps prosecuting law enforcement officers who stop illegal border crossers. But trust him: He’ll get right on that border enforcement business as soon as we grant amnesty to 12 million illegal aliens.

Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean are normally the sort of Mexican-Americans Bush would tear up at while promoting amnesty for illegal aliens. Both served in the military and are taxpaying, law-abiding citizens. They’ve been risking their lives as Border Patrol agents for years.

Ramos was nominated for Border Patrol Agent of the Year in 2005. His nomination received a major setback when the Bush administration decided to put him in prison instead. Ramos and Compean are now serving more than 10 years apiece in solitary confinement for chasing a drug-running illegal alien back to Mexico.

Bush’s pal, U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton, gave immunity to a Mexican drug dealer hauling a million dollars worth of drugs across the border so that the drug dealer could testify against two Border Patrol agents who shot him in the buttocks.

The border patrol agents were presumed guilty of an unlawful shooting because they neglected to fill out the proper paperwork. For busting a cap in the butt of a drug courier crossing the border illegally — who was so mortally wounded that he proceeded to scamper back to Mexico — they were supposed to spend five hours filling out paperwork. This is what the Bush administration means when it talks about a “cover-up.” As U.S. prosecutor Debra Kanof said, “You have to report any discharge of a firearm.”

Intriguingly, Kanof also says: “The Border Patrol pursuit policy prohibits the pursuit of someone.” (Hence, the oft-heard warning of the border agent in hot pursuit, “Stop or I’ll … do absolutely nothing!”) Can we apply this rule to meter maids and tax collectors? At least now border agents will be able to watch the illegal aliens they can’t pursue on infrared cameras!

But wait — that’s not all! The Border Patrol agents also exceeded the speed limit. “In order to exceed the speed limit,” Kanof said, “you have to get supervisor approval, and they did not.” It’s just so hard to fill out a written request to exceed the speed limit when you’re off-roading at 65 mph. There’s a whispering campaign suggesting that Ramos and Compean failed to use their turn signal.

As I understand it, you’re also supposed to not cross the border illegally from Mexico with a van full of drugs. But the Bush administration has no interest in enforcing those laws. Ninety-eight percent of illegal aliens captured crossing the border illegally are not prosecuted. Those drugs are doing the job American drugs just won’t do!

The Bush administration pulls out the big guns only for serious violations like a Border Patrol officer not filling out paperwork.

In addition to giving the illegal alien drug smuggler full immunity to testify against U.S. Border Patrol agents, the government gave him taxpayer-funded medical care for his buttocks wound, an unconditional border-crossing card, the right to sue the U.S. for “civil rights” violations, and a GAP gift card. The drug runner is also on the short-list to replace Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

He’s now suing the U.S. for $5 million, but the Bush administration is hoping to bargain him down to $10 million.

That border-crossing card came in handy when the winged illegal alien brought in another load of drugs a short eight months later — for which he has still not been charged, nearly two years later. Who does he think he is? Rep. William Jefferson?

Bush’s pal Sutton keeps defending his decision to prosecute Border Patrol agents for paperwork violations, rather than an illegal alien for drug trafficking, on the grounds that the drug dealer has not been charged with any crimes. Let’s see, whose job is it to charge that Mexican drug runner with a crime? Why, I believe that would be Johnny Sutton!

Maybe Sutton was too busy prosecuting another Mexican-American law enforcement officer for trying to stop illegal aliens from crossing our border. Deputy Sheriff Gilmer Hernandez shot at the tires of a van full of illegal aliens, inadvertently wounding one of them. Sutton prosecuted Hernandez. The government proceeded to give the illegal aliens green cards and $100,000 each.

I didn’t realize “living in the shadows” meant in the shadows of palm trees around the pools at taxpayer-funded houses.

Illegal aliens might want to rethink Bush’s amnesty plan. The only Hispanics Bush seems to prosecute are the ones who are law-abiding U.S. citizens. (Ann Coulter wrote this.)

NEW YORK (CNN) — President Bush is building his legacy, adding another unfortunate line of hollow bravado to his rhetorical repertoire. To “Mission accomplished,” “Bring it on,” “Wanted: Dead or alive,” and of course, “I earned … political capital, and now I intend to spend it,” he has added “I’ll see you at the bill signing,” referring to his own ill-considered push for so-called comprehensive immigration reform legislation.

Bush emerged from a midday meeting with Republican senators on Capitol Hill to declare, “We’ve got to convince the American people this bill is the best way to enforce our border.”

No, Mr. President, someone you trust and respect must convince you that kind of tortured reasoning should never be exposed before cameras and microphones. Isn’t there anyone in this administration with the guts to say, “Give it a rest, Mr. President”?

Sen. Jeff Sessions came close when he said, “He needs to back off.” This president desperately needs to be reminded that he is the president of all Americans and not just of corporate interests and socio-ethnocentric special interest groups.

In what other country would citizens be treated to the spectacle of the president and the Senate focusing on the desires of 12 million to 20 million people who had crossed the nation’s borders illegally, committed document fraud, and in many cases identity theft, overstayed their visas and demanded, not asked, full forgiveness for their trespasses?

Illegal aliens and their advocates, both liberal and conservative, possess such an overwhelming sense of entitlement that they demand not only legal status, but also that the government leave the borders wide open so that other illegals could follow as well, while offering not so much as an “I’m sorry” or a “Thank you.”

This bill would be disastrous public policy and devastate millions of American workers and their families, taxpayers and any semblance of national security. Yet even in defeat, Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Massachusetts, one of the reform bill’s chief architects, declared: “Doing nothing is totally unacceptable.” Like the senator, Bush says the status quo is unacceptable.

The president and the senator are wrong. It is the sham legislation they support that is totally unacceptable. But if Bush and Kennedy sincerely desire resolution to our illegal immigration and border security crises, I’d like to try to help. But a word of caution, if I may, to our elected officials: Resolution of these crises will require honesty, directness and an absolute commitment to the national interest and the common good of our citizens. Here are what I consider to be the essential guiding principles for any substantive reform:

First, fully secure our borders and ports. Without that security, there can be no control of immigration and, therefore, no meaningful reform of immigration law.

Second, enforce existing immigration laws, and that includes the prosecution of the employers of illegal aliens. As Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Missouri, put it, illegal employers are the magnet that draws illegal aliens across our border. Enforcing the law against illegal employers and illegal aliens at large in the country will mean bolstering, in all respects, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.

Third, the government should fund, equip and hire the people necessary to man the Citizenship and Immigration Services. To do so will ensure that the agency is capable of fully executing and administering lawful immigration into the United States and eliminating the shameful backlog of millions of people who are seeking legal entry into this country.

Those three steps are necessary to the security of the nation and the effective administration and enforcement of existing immigration laws. Those steps should be considered non-negotiable conditions precedent to any change or reform of existing immigration law.

At the same time, the president and Congress should order exhaustive studies of the economic, social and fiscal effects of the leading proposals to change immigration law, and foremost in their consideration should be the well-being of American workers and their families.

The president and Congress should begin the process of thoughtful reform of our immigration laws. Public hearings should be held throughout the nation. The American people should be heard in every region of the country, and fact-finding should be rigorous and thorough. The process will be time-consuming and demand much of our congressmen and senators, their staffs and relevant executive agencies.

The importance of securing borders and ports and reforming our immigration laws is profound, and that security is fundamental to the future of our nation. That future can be realized only with a complete commitment to a comprehensive legislative process of absolute transparency and open public forums in which our elected officials hear the voices of the people they represent. American citizens deserve no less.

Maureen Dowd, The New York Times, June 17, 2007

WASHINGTON – The busty brunette wriggles around in her pink bikini beside a picture of Barack Obama frolicking in the Hawaiian surf. She continues undulating in red underwear emblazoned with the word “Obama.” And, next to a picture of the senator in a suit, she stands proudly, wearing her own dark suit and a political-helpmate smile.

“Does Barack Obama’s wife have something to worry about?” John Gibson teased on Fox News.

Michelle doesn’t have to worry about “Obama Girl,” the model Amber Lee Ettinger, who stars in the music video sweeping the Web, in which she lip-syncs a song called “I Got a Crush on Obama.” The sultry-catchy lyrics include “You’re into border security/let’s break this border between you and me/universal health care reform/it makes me warm.”

But Obama may have to worry about Obama Girl. For one thing, Amber — whose résumé boasts that she was a “featured cage dancer” in the movie “Uptown Girls” — isn’t even sure she’s going to vote for her video dreamboy. “We’ll see,” she told ABC’s Jake Tapper. “Maybe.”

And for another, Obama has been trying to beef up his image for months — including writing a platitudinous manifesto in the new Foreign Affairs — but the buzz is still about his beefcake side. The Democrat who’s so afraid of looking like a pretty boy is once more drawing attention for his more superficial charms.

When I stopped in a Ralph Lauren shop the other day, the sales staff had just sent off some clothes for an Obama photo shoot for a GQ cover.

At his first news conference after he announced last February, Obama chastised reporters for writing about how good he looked in a swimsuit, and he defended hiring oppo-researchers, saying that it was “essential to democracy” to compare and contrast the candidates on the issues.

So why would his aides send two sneering memos about the Clintons’ finances to reporters this week, on a not-for-attribution condition?

That’s not sleazy so much as stupid.

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Frank Rich, The New York Times, June 17, 2007

As a weary nation awaited the fade-out of “The Sopranos” last Sunday, the widow of the actual Mafia don John Gotti visited his tomb in Queens to observe the fifth anniversary of his death. Victoria Gotti was not pleased to find reporters lying in wait.

“It’s disgusting that people are still obsessed with Gotti and the mob,” she told The Daily News. “They should be obsessed with that mob in Washington. They have 3,000 deaths on their hands.” She demanded to know if the president and vice president have relatives on the front lines. “Every time I watch the news and I hear of another death,” she said, “it sickens me.”

Far be it from me to cross any member of the Gotti family, but there’s nothing wrong with being obsessed with both mobs. Now that the approval rating for the entire Washington franchise, the president and Congress alike, has plummeted into the 20s, we need any distraction we can get; the Mafia is a welcome nostalgic escape from a gridlocked government at home and epic violence abroad.

But unlikely moral arbiter that Mrs. Gotti may be, she does have a point. As the Iraq war careens toward a denouement as black, unresolved and terrifying as David Chase’s inspired “Sopranos” finale, the mob in the capital deserves at least equal attention. John Gotti, the last don, is dead. Mr. Chase’s series is over. But the deaths on the nightly news are coming as fast as ever.

True, the Washington mob isn’t as sexy as the Gotti or Soprano clans, but there is now a gripping nonfiction dramatization of its machinations available gratis on the Internet, no HBO subscription required. For this we can thank U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton, who presided over the Scooter Libby trial. Judge Walton’s greatest move was not the 30-month sentence he gave Mr. Libby, a fall guy for higher-ups (and certain to be pardoned to protect their secrets). It was instead the judge’s decision to make public the testimonials written to the court by members of the Washington establishment pleading that a criminal convicted on four felony counts be set free.

Mr. Libby’s lawyers argued that these letters should remain locked away on the hilarious grounds that they might be “discussed, even mocked, by bloggers.” And apparently many of the correspondents assumed that their missives would remain private, just like all other documents pertaining to Mr. Libby’s former boss, Dick Cheney. The result is very little self-censorship among the authors and an epistolary gold mine for readers.

Among those contributing to the 373 pages of what thesmokinggun.com calls “Scooter Libby Love Letters” are self-identified liberals and Democrats, a few journalists (including a contributing writer to The New York Times Magazine) and a goodly sample of those who presided over the Iraq catastrophe or cheered it on. This is a documentary snapshot of the elite Washington mob of our time.

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Kevin Merida and Michael A. Fletcher, The New York Times, June 17, 2007

After all the twisted racial history of the United States Supreme Court, Clarence Thomas was confirmed by the Senate with the smallest margin of victory in more than 100 years, with little professional scrutiny and with a level of manipulative political rancor that diminished everyone directly involved. The effect on Thomas, we learn from this impeccably researched and probing biography, was to reinforce the chronic contradictions with which he has long lived.

Thus, although he seriously believes that his extremely conservative legal opinions are in the best interests of African-Americans, and yearns to be respected by them, he is arguably one of the most viscerally despised people in black America. It is incontestable that he has benefited from affirmative action at critical moments in his life, yet he denounces the policy and has persuaded himself that it played little part in his success. He berates disadvantaged people who view themselves as victims of racism and preaches an austere individualism, yet harbors self-pitying feelings of resentment and anger at his own experiences of racism. His ardent defense of states’ rights would have required him to uphold Virginia’s anti-miscegenation law, not to mention segregated education, yet he lives with a white wife in Virginia. He is said to dislike light-skinned blacks, yet he is the legal guardian of a biracial child, the son of one of his numerous poor relatives. He frequently preaches the virtues of honesty and truthfulness, yet there is now little doubt that he lied repeatedly during his confirmation hearings — not only about his pornophilia and bawdy humor but, more important, about his legal views and familiarity with cases like Roe v. Wade.

Kevin Merida and Michael A. Fletcher conducted hundreds of interviews with Thomas’s friends, relatives and colleagues for “Supreme Discomfort,” in addition to doing extensive archival research. Although Thomas refused to be interviewed, this was not a serious handicap, given his vast paper and video trail and his volubility about his feelings. The authors superbly deconstruct Thomas’s multiple narratives of critical life-events — the accounts vary depending on his audience — and it says much for their intellectual integrity that though they are clearly critical of their subject, their presentation allows readers to make their own judgments. Thomas is examined through the prism of race because, they argue, “that is the prism through which Thomas often views himself,” and their main argument is that “he is in constant struggle with his racial identity — twisting, churning, sometimes hiding from it, but never denying it, even when he’s defiant about it.”

The first third of the book assiduously assembles the shards of his life from his birth in Pin Point, Ga., to his nomination to the Supreme Court by President George H. W. Bush in 1991, and it casts new light on the social and psychological context in which Thomas fashioned himself. Pin Point, where he spent his first six years, comes as close to a scene of rural desolation as is possible in an advanced society. This is black life in the rural South at its bleakest, in which the best hope of the law-abiding is a job at the old crab-picking factory. It is in this sociological nightmare that a 6-year-old boy, by some miracle of human agency, discovers the path to survival through absorption in books. Born to a teenage mother, abandoned by his father when he was a year old, plunged into the even more frightening poverty of the Savannah ghetto, Thomas, along with his brother, was eventually rescued by his grandparents.

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Maureen Dowd, The New York Times, June 134, 2007

WASHINGTON – They’re both going out, not with a bang, but with a bing.

As they go dark, the two Tonys are bitter, paranoid and worn down by their enemies and scheming erstwhile allies. They both live in a bleak universe of half-truths, compromises and betrayals, a world changed utterly by the violence they set in motion. They were both brought low by high-stakes mistakes.

Tony Blair fears the feral beast. Tony Soprano is the feral beast.

The two Tonys found that their skin was never thick enough. And they stumbled into trouble with their Juniors, Junior Bush and Junior Soprano. Before he steps down in two weeks, Tony Blair decided to let loose with one of those self-pitying Tony Soprano-style rants that drove Dr. Melfi to terminate him. Call it No. 10 Downer Street.

“The fear of missing out means today’s media, more than ever before, hunts in a pack,” Mr. Blair said in a speech at Reuters in London. “In these modes it is like a feral beast, just tearing people and reputations to bits. But no one dares miss out.”

The British Tony actually begins his speech – “Reflections on the Future of Democracy and the Media, or Why Don’t You Love Me?” – with the word “whacking,” as in: “This is not my response to the latest whacking from bits of the media.”

Of course it is, at least partly. Talk about hoist on your own press. When Tony Blair announced last month that he would step down, the press that once doted on him devoured him. The commentary was a frenzy of complaints about the slick Blair spin machine that had manipulated the media and turned British discourse to “rot.”

The movie, “The Queen,” recounted the young prime minister’s triumph when he helped spin Diana’s posthumous image as “The People’s Princess” and cajoled the hidebound royals into listening and responding to the feral press beast that was tearing the monarchy’s reputation to bits.

But when the beast (as Evelyn Waugh slyly called his British newspaper in “Scoop”) turned on Mr. Blair over various scandals, most importantly his unholy alliance with W. on Iraq, he grew disillusioned, the lion tamer mauled by his own lion.

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Jennifer Kay, The Associated Press, June 15, 2007

MIAMI – A federal bankruptcy judge Friday awarded Ron Goldman’s family the rights to O.J. Simpson’s canceled book, “If I Did It,” which the Goldmans want to rename “Confessions of a Double Murderer.”

Goldman was slain along with Simpson’s ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson in 1994. The Goldmans want the book’s proceeds included as part of a nearly $33.5 million civil jury award they have been trying to collect for almost a decade.

The ruling “ensures that Mr. Simpson will never see another dime from this book,” said Paul Battista, an attorney for the Goldman family.

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge A. Jay Cristol ruled that Lorraine Brooke Associates, which owned the rights to the book, can be considered as belonging to the former football star. The company is run by Simpson’s daughter, Arnelle.

O.J. Simpson’s book contract with HarperCollins, and a money trail showing $630,000 transferred from the publisher to LBA and then to Simpson for his expenses, confirm his connection to the company, Cristol said.

LBA was “clearly accomplished to perpetuate a fraud,” Cristol said.

Kendrick Whittle, the attorney for Simpson’s daughter, said he had not decided yet if he would appeal. Arnelle Simpson attended the hearing but did not speak with reporters afterward.

Whittle said Cristol’s ruling set a “scary” precedent: “What if she opens another business tomorrow? Are the Goldmans allowed to pursue that, too? Where do they stop?”

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Paul Krugman, The New York Times, June 15, 2007

LONDON – Traveling through Europe recently, I’ve been able to confirm through personal experience what statistical surveys tell us: the perceived stature of Americans is not what it was. Europeans used to look up to us; now, many of them look down on us instead.

No, I’m not talking metaphorically about our loss of moral authority in the wake of Guantánamo and Abu Ghraib. I’m literally talking about feet and inches.

To the casual observer, Europeans — who often seemed short, even to me (I’m 5-foot-7), when I first began traveling a lot in the 1970s — now often seem tall by American standards. And that casual observation matches what careful researchers have found.

The data show that Americans, who in the words of a recent paper by the economic historian John Komlos and Benjamin Lauderdale in Social Science Quarterly, were “tallest in the world between colonial times and the middle of the 20th century,” have now “become shorter (and fatter) than Western and Northern Europeans. In fact, the U.S. population is currently at the bottom end of the height distribution in advanced industrial countries.”

This is not a trivial matter. As the paper says, “height is indicative of how well the human organism thrives in its socioeconomic environment.” There’s a whole discipline of “anthropometric history” that uses evidence on heights to assess changes in social conditions.

For example, nothing demonstrates the harsh class distinctions of Britain in the age of Dickens better than the 9-inch height gap between 15-year-old students at Sandhurst, the elite military academy, and their counterparts at the working-class Marine School. The dismal working and living conditions of urban Americans during the Gilded Age were reflected in a 1- 1/2 inch decline in the average height of men born in 1890, compared with those born in 1830. Americans born after 1920 were the first industrial generation to regain preindustrial stature.

So what is America’s modern height lag telling us?

There is normally a strong association between per capita income and a country’s average height. By that standard, Americans should be taller than Europeans: U.S. per capita G.D.P. is higher than that of any other major economy. But since the middle of the 20th century, something has caused Americans to grow richer without growing significantly taller.

It’s not the population’s changing ethnic mix due to immigration: the stagnation of American heights is clear even if you restrict the comparison to non-Hispanic, native-born whites.

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One of my readers (don’t pretend surprise now, I do have occasional readers) told me he ‘skimmed’ my inflation article, then sniffed “too high-brow for me.”
I replied that people having to choose between food and medicine because of inflation isn’t high-brow.
I received no reply – crickets. (Sigh!)
So, since I’m sure he’s not the only one, let’s make it personal so you’ll suddenly have the time for this.
To wit: if there was no inflation, interest rates would drop about three percent.
Your five percent mortgage would now be at two percent, saving you hundreds of dollars every month.
Still with me? I thought so.
Bankers, in determining the amount of interest they attach to a loan, take future inflation into account. So, if inflation is running at three percent, they will tack on three percent and a four percent loan becomes a seven percent loan.
As you can see, therefore, inflation causes you to pay more.
Conclusion: inflation is not a good thing.
So why on earth do we have inflation? Because it’s good for the federal government. Why is it good for the government? I’ll explain that later. Trust me, if it wasn’t good for government, it would go away tomorrow.

If you look into history, you will find that for one hundred thirty years the United States had no inflation, and in Great Britain there was no inflation for over two hundred years. This means that it is possible to have a non-inflating dollar, regardless of what the Fed and its “experts” say because we had it in the past. History proves it.
So, don’t pay attention to their confusing “high-brow” responses – demand a non-inflating dollar!
Can you imagine what would happen to the economy if interest rates declined by three percent because the head of the Federal Reserve, Mr. Bernanke, with bitter tears in his eyes, moved the United States back to a non-inflating currency? There would be an economic explosion and, most importantly, you would have hundreds of dollars more in your pocket each month.
Is this too high-brow for you? Hmmmm?
I thought not.

Grimgold

 Link

A federal judge said Thursday he will not delay a 2 1/2-year
prison sentence for I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby in the CIA leak case,
a ruling that could send his guilty ass to prison within weeks.
 
U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton’s decision will send Libby’s
attorneys rushing to an appeals court to block the sentence and
could force Bush to pardon the traitor to keep him quiet.

No date was set for Libby to report to prison but it’s expected
to be within six to eight weeks. That will be left up to the U.S.
Bureau of Prisons, which will also select a facility.

Sidney Blumenthal, Salon, June 14, 2007

I returned from Europe a week before President Bush departed for the G8 summit in Germany. In Rome and Paris I met with Cabinet ministers who uniformly said the chief issue in transatlantic relations is somehow making it through the last 18 months of the Bush administration without further major disaster. None of the nonpartisan think tanks in Washington can organize seminars on this overriding reality, but within the European councils of state the trepidation about the last days of Bush is the No. 1 issue in foreign affairs.

One of the ministers with whom I met, who had supported the invasion of Iraq and had been an admirer of outgoing British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s, ruefully cited Blair’s remark about Iraq at his joint press conference with Bush on May 17 at the White House: “This is a fight we cannot afford to lose.” “Cannot? Cannot lose?” mocked the minister. “Should not have lost.”

High officials of European governments describe U.S. influence as squandered and swiftly eroding (one minister went down a list of Bush administration officials, rating them according to their stupidity), the country’s moral authority nil. Lethal power vacuums are emerging from Lebanon to Pakistan, and Europeans are incapable on their own of quelling the fires that burn far closer to them than to the United States through their growing Muslim populations and proximity to the Middle East. They have no illusions that they will be treated seriously as real allies or that there will be a sudden about-face by the Bush administration. Their faint hope — and it is only a hope — is that they have already seen the worst and that it is not yet to come. Even worse than Bush, from their perspective, would be another Republican president who continued Bush policies and also appointed neoconservatives. That would toll, if not the end of days, then the decline and fall of the Western alliance except in name only, and an even more rapid acceleration of chaos in the world order.

Bush’s procession through Europe was a pageant of contempt, disdain, delusion, provocation and vanity masquerading as a welcome respite from his troubles at home. In Albania he landed at last in a place where he was hailed as a conquering hero. His demolition derby of U.S. influence was presented as a series of bold moves, but it confirmed the fears of the other world leaders at the G8 summit (and elsewhere) that the rest of Bush’s presidency will be an erratic series of crashes. His performance ranged from King Nod, issuing proclamations oblivious to and even proud of their negative effect, to King Zog (the last king of Albania). No president has had a more disastrous European trip since President Reagan placed a wreath on the graves of SS soldiers in the Bitburg cemetery. Yet Reagan’s mistake was unintentional and symbolic, a temporary and superficial setback, doing no real damage to U.S. foreign relations, while Bush’s blunders not only reinforced counterproductive policies but also created a new one with Russia that has the potential of profoundly undermining U.S. national security interests for years to come.

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