A Farewell Song for George Bush: "Virgil Caine is My Name"

As President Bush trots round the world on his extended farewell, Enduring America is honoured to launch a competition to find the appropriate song to say Good-bye to the 43rd President.

Our first entrant comes from long ago, in the days when George was still raisin' hell rather than creating it.

[youtube]http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=38JpAMG65Dg&feature=related[/youtube]

See all the Farewell Song contest entrants

From the Archives: What Shoes Mean in Iraq

President Bush was bemused when asked about the gift of footwear offered him at his news conference yesterday. It was "one of the weirdest" moments of his eight years in office.

If George wants to take it beyond "weird", he might consider the significance of shoes in Iraqi society. A scene from April 2003:

[youtube]http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=rcya5pNBMHs[/youtube]

Shoe-Flinging: Best/Worst One-Liner So Far....

As all sharp Enduring America readers know, President Bush's surprise visit to Baghdad was not meant to provide comic video moments but to highlight his signing of the Status of Forces Agreement, which the Iraqi Parliament finally passed last month

Step up "Simon T":

It would have been more appropriate, although admittedly more difficult, if [the Iraqi journalist] had thrown a SOFA.

Boom, boom!

Afghanistan: A Few Words of Discomfort

In today's Observer, Peter Beaumont offers a challenging if depressing analysis of the future in Afghanistan:

With each death in Afghanistan - civilian and military - it becomes more of a commonplace to say this is a war that can't be won. The same British officers who said the Taliban had been decapitated say these days there can be no victory of the kind normally envisaged. Yet still more US and British soldiers are heading to this war.

Then what?

The answer is that no one directing the war in Afghanistan really knows. All that is on offer is the attempt to impose a military solution on a conflict which - like so many modern wars - cannot be settled by arms; which cannot be won; and which, in too many ways, has long been lost.

Beaumont's shrewd reading sets the deteriorating situation against the easy constructions of "liberal intervention":

What politicians on both sides of the Atlantic - President-elect Barack Obama included - have yet to understand is that easy victories on the battlefield and quick-fix reconstruction efforts are no answer to so-called 'frozen' conflicts where long lasting and pre-existing ethnic, sectarian and political competitions are either unfrozen or exacerbated by the intervention.

It is his conclusion, however, this is most striking and perceptive, as the US foregoes any political approach for military boots on the ground:

What is necessary is to identify and then mediate areas of dangerous competition - what some specialists call 'conflictual peace-building'.

The problem is that as the conflict in Afghanistan has been escalated by all sides, the room for such strategies has been squeezed out.

Iraq: I'm Sure the Shoes Were Filled with Flowers

A quick word on the "Iraq Journalist Throws Shoes at President Bush" incident:

When Douglas Feith, the Assistant Secretary of Defense and one of the geniuses behind the Iraq invasion, was asked in 2005 why Iraqis did not greet their American liberators with flowers, he replied, "“But they had flowers in their minds.”

So I look forward, on the Bush Farewell Tour, to the explanation that the shoe-throwing journo was expressing his thanks when he said, "This is a goodbye kiss, you dog."

[youtube]http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=M8GOrc0-Ygg[/youtube]