Mushy and Bushy In Pictures

With the side by side Dubya vs. Dowd post yesterday, I didn't have time or space to explicate the many other inside jabs and jokes Maureen Dowd put in her Mushy: Handsome In A Uniform column. Rather than just run through those we have a special illustrated bonus post.

Once I thought my daddy was a wimp for cuddlin’ up real close with dictators, tradin’ stability for freedom.

Bush 1 greeting Prince Abdullah. Conspiracy theories about the closeness of the Bush and Saud royal families are endless.

Sometimes when the soul of a nation speaks, we must listen. But if that soul is housed in a bunch of trial lawyers wearing identical dark suits and calling my man Mushy a “dog,” I say, bring on the batons. Police tear-gassing lawyers is really just a foreign version of tort reform, which I support.

Lawyers took to the street to protest the suspending of the Pakistan constitution.

I think Mushy should put Benazir Bhutto under house arrest in Karachi. They call her “a kleptocrat in an Hermès scarf.” I call her a chaos magnet.

The kleptocrat line was coined by Jemima Khan who has nearly as good a way with the epithet as MoDo herself. Can't tell the label on the hajib in that picture, but Bibi is fond of white.

She’s slippery. One minute she’s overlooking Mushy’s flaws, the next she’s appalled by them. I’m not even sure what nickname to use. Her friends called her Pinky at Harvard and Bibi later. I think I like Pinky.

Dubya and Pinkie just missed each other at Harvard. She was class of '71 and he got his MBA in 1973. The even make the same page on the famous alumni website.

But I looked into Mushy’s eyes and saw a master, a man committed to helping us fight terror. And sometimes we must fight terror with tyranny. He promised me he’d be a more low-key autocrat, stop wearing that scary uniform — at least when he’s playing tennis.

Dubya famously looked into Putin's eyes and saw a man he could trust. That's turned out well. Dowd is saying that Mushy might be no better.


After suspending declaring martial law, Mushy dismissed rumors of a counter-coup by saying he was going to go play tennis.

We’ll give you billions of dollars and lots of big-ticket stuff, like F-16s — no strings attached.

Last year the US sold Pakistan 18 new F-16 fighters after cutting off sales in 1990 as punishment for their detonation of a nuclear bomb. Obviously some nukes are less dangerous than others.

I’m gonna have to sweet-talk Laura on coming around on Burma. I might even have to kiss her hand, like Sarko.

Laura Bush recently concluded a diplomatic mission to put the pressure on the Burma coup leaders. And she gets romanced by the latest French president at a recent "not State Dinner" honoring fellow right winger Nicolas Sarkovy.

And I think we have set a new record for number of nicknames for foreign leaders used in a single column, thanks to Mushy, Bibi, Sarko, with a very special cameo by Vice.

Inauguration Inversion

Mushy: Handsome in Uniform
By MAUREEN DOWD
Published: November 7, 2007

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf declared a state of emergency and suspended the constitution on Saturday. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said "President Musharraf said that he would take off his uniform and that would be an important step"

Today’s column is a Bizarro World inversion of George Walker Bush’s Second Inaugural Address delivered on January 20, 2005.

Dubya’s Inauguration	Dowd’s Inversion
We are led, by events and common sense, to one conclusion: The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands. The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world.	We are led, by recent events and common sense, to one conclusion: The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the repression of liberty in other lands.
In America's ideal of freedom, the exercise of rights is ennobled by service, and mercy, and a heart for the weak.	In America’s ideal of freedom, we are ennobled by a heart for the weak. But we must also have a heart for the strongmen.
So it is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world.	From now on, it is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of tyrannical movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending democracy in our world so liberty can thrive.
We will persistently clarify the choice before every ruler and every nation: The moral choice between oppression, which is always wrong, and freedom, which is eternally right. America will not pretend that jailed dissidents prefer their chains, or that women welcome humiliation and servitude, or that any human being aspires to live at the mercy of bullies.	We will persistently clarify the moral choice before every ruler and nation: Choose oppression, which can work, as we see with our Arab allies, or freedom, which — O.K., I admit it this once — we can’t make work in Iraq.
America's influence is not unlimited, but fortunately for the oppressed, America's influence is considerable, and we will use it confidently in freedom's cause.	America’s influence is not unlimited. And unfortunately for the oppressed, Mushy’s open defiance is helping to further undermine America’s influence. But we will use what influence we have left to pretend that jailed dissidents prefer their chains and that human beings aspire to live at the mercy of bullies.
The leaders of governments with long habits of control need to know: To serve your people you must learn to trust them. Start on this journey of progress and justice, and America will walk at your side.	The leaders of governments with long habits of control need to know: To serve your people you must learn to mistrust them. Stop your journey of progress and justice, and America will not only walk at your side, we’ll give you billions of dollars and lots of big-ticket stuff, like F-16s — no strings attached.
From the viewpoint of centuries, the questions that come to us are narrowed and few. Did our generation advance the cause of freedom? And did our character bring credit to that cause?	Three years ago, I believed that the most important question history would ask us was: Did our generation advance the cause of freedom? But now I am older and wiser. I know that the most important question history will ask us is: What’s a little martial law between friends?

Will history judge us by our words or by our actions?