The view from here

The news that counts

Barcelona, Spain

One of the things about being out of the country for a week is you see how the other half lives without the constant bombardment of propaganda from our government. (They have their own to BS them, of course.)

There has been the news of Britain’s crack down on Muslim extremists, and the Iranians saying “You must be on crack” when the nuclear powers threaten them over their nuclear program. But so far, a glorious absence from the Spanish papers of George Bush.

Imagine the bliss of living over here and not having your papers full of his crap every day.

I did make the mistake of picking up the International Herald Tribune yesterday, though. (I just wanted some baseball scores, which I could have had on the internet, but there is some tactile pleasure of seeing box scores in print.) But there to spoil my day, was Bush on the front page (no picture, thank God) but just a quote about Iran.

The one paragraph story was about his comments, evidently delivered after he’d leveled some more brush at the ranch, that “all options were on the table” regarding Iran, “including force.”

He continued, “But force is always a president’s last option.”

Is this guy so stupid? Ok, don’t answer that. First, does he think anyone believes that he isn’t willing to use force at the drop of a falsified intelligence briefing? And second, does he not know why Iran wants nuclear weapons? Maybe the same reason why Saddam wishes he’d had them–so they can protect themselves from Bush?

If there’s anything that should be clear, it’s that Bush’s attack of Iraq has made every other country in the world eager to join the nuclear club. In the opinion of every other country in the world, it’s Bush who’s brought the world to this, not Iran.

Now, back to the soccer scores. Barcelona 3, Betis 0.