Bush Caught Babbling While Bombs Keep Falling

Bush Caught Babbling While Bombs Keep Falling –updated–

Breaking news, so to speak. Hezbollah has finally unveiled one of their “surprises.”
They've got a new missile that just hit Israel. I talked about the Zilzal missile
earlier. According to CNN, the new missile — I can't even
find the correct spelling right now — is “100 kiligrams or 220 pounds
of explosives,” which is 4-5 times as powerful as the Kaytusha that is
only 20 kiligrams. However, that comes from CNN and I can't get confirmation
anywhere. I'll save you time, because there's no information on the web about
it yet. Military help out there, please. Note (2:10 p.m.): CNN got it wrong. It's not a missile. It's a rocket. It's also a higher echelon rocket of one already in use, both of which come from Iran, which I'm sure doesn't surprise anyone. UPDATE (3:03 p.m.): It's called a Fajr-5 rocket, a bigger version of the Fajr-3 rocket.

Now, excuse me while I yawn at the
inevitable, which is now masquerading as “leadership.” They wasted
precious days deciding, that's for sure. There's talk of a 72-hour ceasefire
so relief efforts can get into the area, meanwhile the LA Times reports the
blockade could soon throw Lebanon
into darkness. I know it's said with caveats, but really, if you want to
make Lebanon into the image of Iraq, just get it over with, then Iran's Shia
crescent will be complete.

But honest to God, if you handed Bush a map of the Middle East, without the
names of the countries marked, I doubt if he could name them. Neither could
many other Americans but he's our president.

David
Gregory asked the question today and the president punted. No, he didn't
even do that much. He let Blair answer it, which wasn't much better, except
the man can speak.

I watched it live and referred to it earlier. Think
Progress caught it on
tape. Here's the transcript:

QUESTION: Mr. President, both of you, I’d like to ask you about the big picture that you’re discussing. Mr. President, three years ago, you argued that an invasion of Iraq would create a new stage of Arab-Israeli peace. And yet today there is an Iraqi prime minister who has been sharply critical of Israel. Arab governments, despite your arguments, who first criticized Hezbollah, have now changed their tune. Now they’re sharply critical of Israel. And despite from both of you warnings to Syria and Iran to back off support from Hezbollah, effectively, Mr. President, your words are being ignored. So what has happened to America’s clout in this region that you’ve committed yourself to transform? BUSH: It’s an interesting period because, instead of having foreign policies based upon trying to create a sense of stability, we have a foreign policy that addresses the root causes of violence and instability. For a while, American foreign policy was just, Let’s hope everything is calm — manage calm. But beneath the surface brewed a lot of resentment and anger that was manifested on September the 11th. And so we’ve taken a foreign policy that says: On the one hand, we will protect ourselves from further attack in the short run by being aggressive in chasing down the killers and bringing them to justice. And make no mistake: They’re still out there, and they would like to harm our respective peoples because of what we stand for. In the long term, to defeat this ideology — and they’re bound by an ideology — you defeat it with a more hopeful ideology called freedom.

UPDATE (2:15 p.m.): What did Bush do after the press briefing with Blair? Think Progress has the pictures. …oh, and I almost forgot, don't forget Christy's take on Bush-Blair, which is right on.