Can Chimpy's latest lies about Iraq plans backfire? Also, Jonathan Turley goes (calmly) ballistic about impeachment, and we recall Gavin M's apt words

Today in Meseberg, Germany -- in Full Chimpy Mode,
where you can't easily separate the lies from the delusions

"For once, a Bush backfire in the Middle East wouldn't actually further entangle us in the region, but would serve the interest of the American people."

--Dan Froomkin, in his washingtonpost.com column today,
"Another Backfire in Iraq"

Just how screwed up is the Bush regime's foreign-policy apparatus? So screwed up, Dan Froomkin suggests, that this latest screw-up might actually help us. "President Bush's brashest attempt to lock in his Iraq policy beyond his presidency," he writes, "like so many other Bush initiatives in the region, appears to be backfiring spectacularly."

Dan goes on:

Secret negotiations between U.S. and Iraqi officials over a multi-year security agreement aren't so secret anymore. Details have been dribbling out over the last several days (see my June 5 column, Bush's Secret Iraq Deal).

And the American demands seem to be infuriating Iraqi lawmakers, some of whom are even threatening to kick out U.S. troops entirely.

"An ironic result of Bush's overreach," Dan writes, "could be that the domestic debate over American troop withdrawal -- in which presumptive Republican nominee John McCain is Bush's most ardent defender -- becomes moot, with the Iraqis insisting that we leave on their terms."

Dan quotes Chimpy himself, at a joint press conference this morning with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, responding to a question from Washington Post reporter Dan Eggen, in Full Chimpy Mode -- where it's difficult if not impossible to separate the lies from the plain delusions:

I think we'll end up with a strategic agreement with Iraq. You know, it's all kinds of noise in their system and our system. What eventually will win out is the truth. For example, you read stories perhaps in your newspaper that the U.S. is planning all kinds of permanent bases in Iraq. That's an erroneous story. The Iraqis know -- will learn it's erroneous, too. We're there at the invitation of the sovereign government of Iraq. . . .

And as I said clearly in past speeches, this will not involve permanent bases, nor will it bind any future President to troop levels. You know, as to -- look, Eggen, you can find any voice you want in the Iraqi political scene and quote them, which is interesting, isn't it, because in the past you could only find one voice, and now you can find a myriad of voices. It's a vibrant democracy; people are debating.

Isn't it good to know that those Iraqi voices branding our Chimpy as a wacko, Muslim-hating, imperialistic turd have his seal of approval? Maybe he does get the idea of democracy. (Nah, I don't think so either.)

Now, if you delve into coverage of the "secret" negotiations, you discover some interesting things about the permanent bases that Chimpy insists we're not negotiating for:

* We've actually scaled back out "request," from some 200 such bases to the mere 58 apparently specified in our latest proposal.

* More important, there is at play here a bit of linguistic sleight of tongue. You see, we're not demanding ownership of the bases in question. We just want to lease them, presumably for a long, long time. (More or less the way we "lease" Guantanamo Bay?) Our friend Siun was all over this story Sunday at Firedoglake.

This fake-legalistic lie-mongering, by which Chimpy manages to insist that the U.S. is not negotiating for "permanent" bases, is clearly yet another coldly calculated Bush regime lie. Although the calculation was clearly done by someone with significantly more mental agility (one can imagine Chimpy jumping up and down and frothing at the mouth when this morsel of verbal legerdemain was explained to him), in my mind his role as supreme mouthpiece for the deception qualifies by itself as a "high crime" worthy of immediate impeachment and conviction, followed by prosecution for war crimes which will result in his dying in prison. That's assuming the death penalty, of which he is after all such an enthusiastic fan, is off the table.

(Incredibly, there are still people, either mentally impaired or just bald-faced liars, who pretend it's still an open question as to whether Chimpy has lied to the American people. How are they allowed to walk in the company of decent folk without being showered with abuse for their imbecility or deceit?)


SPEAKING OF TALKING ABOUT IMPEACHMENT, JONATHAN TURLEY
-- IN HIS LACONIC WAY -- WAS BREATHING FIRE ON COUNTDOWN

Howie wrote earlier today about Kucinich and Wexler on impeachment, and in today's "White House Briefing" Dan Froomkin quotes ("via the Crooks and Liars blog") the pithiest moment of Georgetown law guru Jonathan Turley's rant last night on Countdown:

The framers, I think, would have been astonished by the absolute passivity, if not the collusion, of the Democrats in protecting President Bush from impeachment. I mean, they created a system that was essentially idiot-proof, and God knows we've put that to the test in the past few years, but I don't think they anticipated that so many members of the opposition would stand quietly in the face of clear presidential crimes.

The good professor, Keith Olbermann's No. 1 go-to guy for legal and constitutional counsel, spoke as calmly, logically, and tartly even-tonedly as always, but man, he was breathing fire! I'm delighted that Crooks and Liars has video up -- if you didn't see it, you owe it to yourself. (Of course I might also observe that I don't recall Professor Turley himself being quite this fire-breathingly gung-ho about impeachment before.)


STILL, MY FAVORITE WORDS OF WISDOM ON CHIMPY'S
NEVER-WILL-BE, NEVER-WAS IMPEACHMENT ARE GAVIN M'S

For some time now I've had these pearls of wisdom, from our friend Gavin M (of Sadly, No!) tacked up on the wall of my office cubicle, right below Homer Simpson's timeless observation "Trying is the first step towards failure":

There seems to have been a fairly seamless continuum between 'talk of impeachment is premature' and 'the moment for impeachment has passed.'

One grows suspicious of these moments-for-action that so often seem to whoosh by in the night without mention.

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