I just listened to the most ridiculous thing I've heard since Bush took office. This morning, Bush held a question and answer session via videoconference with a number of military captains in Tikrit. After making a brief opening statement that contained the normal buzzwords, he began asking questions of these captains.
I'm sure you've all seen those infomercials where you have the host pretending to be positively clueless about cleaning/cooking/investing/whatever, asking asinine softball questions and then being amazed/delighted with the responses. This is exactly what it was like -- with Bush asking questions like:
(paraphrasing) Are the Iraqis ready to fight? What do you hear from the Iraqi people? So, how are the Iraqis doing?
This last question was actually passed amongst three captains before anyone actually provided the answer that you could see coming a mile away, that they were doing "great."
The Q & A session turned into an absolute theatre of the absurd when Bush asked an Iraqi sergeant how things were going. The response? Taking a page out of Harriet Miers' book:
"Thank you for everything, Mr. Bush. I -- I like yous." [sic]
It was the most scripted and utterly bizarre thing I've heard. If any of you Bush apologists out there doubt that it was scripted, consider the alternative, that Bush didn't know how the Iraqis were doing and was genuinely curious. That's fucking terrifying. Seriously, how dumb does the administration think we are?