corrente

At his photo-op with Jafari, Bush made the mistake of allowing himself to be asked a question by an actual journalist.

An Iraqi journalist. These guys were pretty green, and got suckered by the imperial grandeur (not to mention the Grace of His Presence, of course:

Some of the Iraqis were clearly awed by the trappings of power: the twin armored limousines in the driveway with U.S. and Iraqi flags, and the gilded East Room bedecked with fresh flowers and prominent officials .

"You have a great country," remarked a radio reporter, one of the five Iraqi journalists traveling with Jafari, as he and his colleagues snapped photos of one another before the event.
(via WaPo)

Taking photos of each other for the wife and kids.... Precious...

Anyhow, here's the question one of them asked Bush:

"When will you begin the reconstruction in Iraq?"

So, to an Iraqi, it looks like no reconstruction at all has taken place—a little reality therapy for our delusional President:

[The] question that seemed to take Bush, who has already sunk a couple of hundred billion dollars into the occupation, by surprise.

Hundreds of billions gone, and no evident results on the ground. What a clusterfuck.

Of course, there's the $8 billion that simply went missing (I wonder where?), but that's just a small percentage.

So, what did Bush answer:

"We are spending reconstruction money," Bush said. "But, you know, you need to ask that to the government. They're in charge. It's your government, not ours."

Nice example of passing the buck. And what does Jafari say? Show me the money! (which was doubtless the purpose of his visit)

That didn't satisfy Jafari, who stood beside the natty Bush in creased suit pants and well-worn tasseled loafers. "We hope that Mr. Bush will try to redo a Marshall Plan, calling it the Bush Plan, to help Iraq, to help the Iraqi people," he urged. "And this would be a very wonderful step." The president, by way of reply, said "Good job" and led the prime minister to lunch.

"Good job." How patronizing.

Pitiful. And sad.

Of course, Bush has already decided on an exit strategy: Fuck the Iraqis and blame the Democrats ("The Democrats stabbed the Army in the back!", back). Jafari will never see a dime. And if Bush has a spare $50 billion lying around, don't Americans have first claim on it?

NOTE Of course, Jafari could have planted the question with the journalist. If so, that indicated, um, a certain lack of confidence that Bush was going to come up with anything at all.