From Holden:
Georgie and his poodle took a few questions from the press today.
We got a little taste of Bush incoherence:
We’re working very closely to find al Qaeda and bring members of al Qaeda to justice. We’ve worked closely to free Afghanistan. We’re working closely to interdict the flow of weapons of mass destruction. The Proliferation Security Initiative is based — the membership of which is a lot of members of the EU. I mean, there’s a lot of things we’re working together on. NATO expansion we worked together on. It was such a refreshing moment when the new leaders of — the leaders of the new countries in NATO walked in the room, in the Czech Republic. It was a fantastic moment to see these proud members walk in and say, we’re now a member of the greatest alliance ever. And there’s a lot we can continue to do.
Some sort of weird hybrid Bush/Rummy incoherence:
Right. In the spirit of the last question, we’ll do what it takes to get a peace. And the conference — what the Prime Minister and I discussed last night is, do not we have an obligation to develop a strategy? And the answer is, absolutely, we have an obligation. And one way to do that is to include the Quartet to bring nations together and say, here’s what it takes to help the Palestinians develop a state that is truly free. And I’m all for conferences, just so long as the conferences produce something. And we had a long discussion about whether or not a conference could produce a viable strategy that we could then use as a go-by for our own obligations, as well as the obligations for the Palestinians for them to have their own state. And the answer is, if that conference will do that, you bet I’m a big supporter.
And some plain old pig ignorance:
Q You know, you talk about democracy being so necessary. There are those who would say there is sometimes a harsh peace of a dictator. What if the Palestinian state comes up with somebody who is not a democrat, but is willing to have peace with the Israelis? And let me transfer that to the Iraqis, as well. What if the Iraqis come up with somebody who’s not friendly to the United States, is not a democrat, but it’s peaceful, is this something you can live with?
PRESIDENT BUSH: Well, first of all, if there’s an election, the Iraqis will have come up with somebody who is duly-elected. In other words, democracy will have spoken. And that person is going to have to listen to the people, not to the whims of a dictator, not to their own desires — personal desires. The great thing about democracy is you actually go out and ask the people for a vote, as you might have noticed recently. And the people get to decide, and they get to decide the course of their future. And so it’s a contradiction in terms to say a dictator gets elected. The person who gets elected is chosen by the people. And so I don’t — I’m not —
Q You can be elected and be a tyrant.
PRESIDENT BUSH: Well, you can be elected and then be a strong man, and then you get voted out, so long as you end up honoring democracy. But if you’re true to democracy, you’ll listen to the people, not to your own desires. If you’re true to democracy, you’ll do what the people want you to do. That’s the difference between democracy and a tyrant.