"No one believes anything the president says anymore"

[omega minimo]

Tonight the talking heads on Jim Lehrer NewsHour were saying what needs to be said. Plenty of good one liners-- one of my favorites (after hearing CBS' Bob Shaeffer begin the nooz with "On this First Day of the Fourth Year of the War in Iraq") was: "The fact that it's three years speaks for itself." As the nation drowns in spin, the facts have GOT to speak for themselves, eh? How is it that W. spent today talking about preventing Iraq from becoming a haven and staging ground for terrorists, when his administration has CREATED THAT REALITY? :crazy:


ZBIGNIEW BRZEZINSKI: We have to get rid of this colonialist mindset that we are there to teach them how to be a country, how to be a democracy, how to avoid a civil war. This is their country. They're quite capable of running it once we're out.


ZB: Well, you know, goals have to be realistic, unless they're just slogans. The notion of us occupying Iraq, creating democracy through an occupation, and then that democracy spreading throughout the Middle East was an illusion from day one.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/middle_east/jan-june06/iraq_3-20.html
Assessment of Iraq war on its anniversary

GWEN IFILL: We just heard the president say there will be no compromise, there must be victory. Before we get to his definitions, what's your assessment, Mr. Brzezinski, first, on where we stand three years in?

ZBIGNIEW BRZEZINSKI, Former National Security Adviser to President Carter: WELL, THE FACT THAT IT'S THREE YEARS SPEAKS FOR ITSELF. Obviously, we haven't been very successful. We're facing a war of attrition. And in a war of attrition, if the insurgency that's domestic, that's indigenous is not losing, it is basically winning, because it is fighting against an occupation army.

GWEN IFILL: If it were possible to do a cost-benefit analysis on whether it's been worth it to be in Iraq, as increasingly so many Americans say, "No," what would you say were the costs and what were the benefits?

ZBIGNIEW BRZEZINSKI: I think the benefits have been, in fact, very few, beyond the obvious one: the removal of Saddam Hussein. BUT WE HAVE UNDERMINED OUR INTERNATIONAL LEGITIMACY. THAT'S A VERY HIGH COST TO A SUPERPOWER. We have destroyed our credibility; no one believes anything the president says anymore.

We have tarnished our morality with Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. These are phenomenal costs. And there's, of course, blood and money and tens of thousands of Iraqi killed. So, in my view, the time has come to face all of this, to realize that staying for a prolonged period of time until some ephemeral victory is not the solution. It is time to leave.


President Bush grasps "some ephemeral victory."

[IsItJustMe]

1. The thirty percenters will always believe, for they have mind to think for

themselves.

[omega minimo]

7. and who believes there's really "30%"?

:evilgrin:

[0007]

12. The 30% number is a myth! Most are those sorry ass

meat loafers that work for the wealthy feel compelled to keep their jobs. If reality were indeed known. The true figure would be around 4%.

[FiveGoodMen]

36. Wish you were right about that.

Fact is, most of my father's relatives, my mother's relatives and the kids of the man mom married after dad died, all support Bush and the Rethugs completely.

I can't stand to be anywhere near any of them.

Their GD pastors have told them that this is what Jesus wants and they're too damned lazy or scared to read the words of their 'savior' for themselves.

That's 80 or 90 percent of my relatives. I imagine the 30% is probably the ugly, unforgivable truth.

[RobertSeattle]

26. "Don't confuse me with the facts - my mind is already made up"

[TomInTib]

2. This is zbig. Georgie,.. meet toaster.... n/t

[cyberia]

17. Somebody should ask Zbig

how what George is doing is different from what Zbig advocated in "The Grandchess Board". As far as I can tell, there's not much difference. The only thing is that Bush is doing it incompetently. That probably is why Kerry insisted during the election campaign that he could run the occupation better than Bush was doing.

[omega minimo]

18. "no one believes anything the president says anymore."

His credentials (including the involvement he's had in similar efforts) allow for him to come on PBS and make statements like that. Maybe the accent helps soften the blow. Who else is saying this? Who is telling Americans that their standing in the world, our "credibility" as a nation, has been absolutely destroyed?

[cyberia]

19. I suspect Zbig is a bit sour grapes

because Bush screwed up his grand strategy to take over Eurasia.

[omega minimo]

20. ...or that illiteracy, doublethink and bald-faced lies

have replaced his elegant, artful negotiations

[Vinnie From Indy]

22. LOL!

A true BushCo believer! I thought there were only a handful of you guys left.

[Doctor_J]

47. heh heh

Enjoy your brief stay here, cy. Your group is Kool-Aid drinking Limbeciles is growing very small.

[blm]

24. No - Kerry said he first would assure Iraqis they had no intention of

staying as an occupying force and insisted on NO PERMANENT BASES as an important signal to send to them RIGHT AWAY.

I also guess you haven't kept up and read Kerry's Iraq withdrawal plan to be implemented the day after their election last December with the goal to have troops out by the end of 2006?

[gratuitous]

3. Well now, that's just not true

There are, oh, probably 20 to 25 people who still believe what Bush says. And they anchor the evening news shows, the cable shows, and the analysis shows. Sure, they know Bush is a serial liar, wholly incapable of telling the truth even by accident, but they publish, air, recount and retell every word he says without so much as a raised eyebrow or a quaver in their voices. Not one of them will air a clip of Bush and then come back and say, "Well, there's the president again, talking out his ass."

[CrazyOrangeCat]

4. Yes!

Don't they realize???!!!

The very first anchor that opens his/her mouth and utters the words, "He's talkin' outta his ass." . . . is a hero for all time. We're talking history books for generations!

To paraphrase Bob Dylan in "Masters of War", "Is their money THAT GOOD???"

Brilliant post, gratuitous.

[hvn_nbr_2]

6. First anchor to say "He's talkin' outta his ass."

Sorry. Edward R. Murrow is dead. Even if any of them tried to say it, they'd be fired by CorpMedia before the telecast ended, and they all know it.

[CrazyOrangeCat]

9. Yes, they'd be summarily fired.

But that's my point.

They've got enough money!

They could be patriotic heroes . . . why isn't there some appeal there? Is their sycophancy so important?

[glitch]

33. When you're dealing with a mafia family, there may be other inducements.

I wouldn't put threatening their families past the bfee. But I admit, most of the airholes performing the "news" wouldn't need to be threatened to comply.

[omega minimo]

10. Din't KO just say tonight,"Who does the president think he's f'n kidding?"

:bounce:

[Erika]

11. Best quote of the decade

W, though his lies and deceptions, has lost all credibility with Americans.

[omega minimo]

13. Hopefully even the "I'd have a beer with the guy" crowd has learnt sumthin

this time.

[omega minimo]

5. Yep, that's what Jon Stewart's for:

"Not one of them will air a clip of Bush and then come back and say, "Well, there's the president again, talking out his ass."

[Strawman]

31. Of course. The president is their meal ticket

They rely on their Washington Reporters and the President is their beat. The things that come our of his mouth have to be worth a shit or else why even pay them to show up to his press conferences and perform the routine they have come to understand as their proper jobs?

[EST]

8. I think he's describing the size

his a$$hole's gonna be when this thing really gets in high gear! We are seeing a historical implosion, not remotely pretty, and not moving swiftly enough to suit me. Dark days, indeed for a once proud nation. Even from a thousand miles away, the seat of American government reeks of stale urine.

[CrazyOrangeCat]

14. Yeah, he's starting to wake up to the fact that he's screwed.

This is going to be one very very interesting year . . .

[EST]

15. Well, maybe.

It strikes me that he never wakes up to anything that demands introspection.
Somebody, or a bunch or somebodies he trusts, has to scream at him what a fuck up he is and threaten him with a belt, a trip to the principal's office, grounding for fifty years, and a few years in juvie hall before he would start to get the message.

Oh and cut off his allowance...

[CrazyOrangeCat]

16. "But, but, I've ALWAYS had an allowance!"

[sutz12]

23. I wish we could...

the sorry sack of shit will leave with a lifetime pension. They ought to make him support 100 Iraqi families for life.

And 100 families in NOLA

[fooj]

32. Or cut off his meds...

oops, I mean drugs.....

Peace.

[calimary]

21. FIVE! Get thee to the Greatest Page!

This is what I was looking for. Can't spell his name for shit, but what he says (HERE, at least) is worth keeping.

[omega minimo]

37. Thanks calimary! This was too "good" not to share

Glad you found it. :hi:

:bounce:

zzbig

:bounce:

zzbig

:bounce:

[C_U_L8R]

25. Bush seems to think

that if he says the same thing but louder
then more people will believe him.

Good god.. he was practically yelling
at today's press conference.
Correction.. he WAS yelling.

The poor fool.

[sutz12]

27. That's because it used to work...

although reasonable people never fell for it, many did. Many did. :shrug:

[Kurovski]

28. K&R.(nt)

[EVDebs]

29. The Afganistan 'democracy' our troops are fighting to prop up...

Afghan man faces death for abandoning Islam
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0603210143mar21,1,938137.story?coll=chi-newsnationworld-hed

[Doctor_J]

45. NOt only that, but Afghanistan is back in the hands of the Taliban

and producing all-time amounts of opium.

[FSogol]

30. K&R! N/T

[Hidden Stillness]

34. No One Can Believe Anything Anyone Says Anywhere Anymore

I believe that "no one believes anything...anymore," and that this is the beginning of the end of the reign of lies and smear campaigns and censorship, not only of the Bush Administration and the corporate/"prick" neo-con Republicans and Iraq, etc., but also of the entire corporate takeover of our society and ways of "public" expression. Our economy is largely destroyed--especially here in the formerly unionized, manufacturing Midwest--and nobody knows if this will be reversed before we all end up with nothing but no-skill, no-benefits, minimum wage jobs. The price-gouging, bill-gouging, insurance-gouging is getting frightening and all income is now going to these bloodsucking capitalist bastards, as the whole standard of living sinks. There is no solution, no progress toward anything, it is terrifying and eventually starts to drive you insane, and when anyone tries to get an answer from the Republicans who run everything, you are either totally ignored, or you get a sneering laugh, and "framing." "Tax and spend liberal," ha ha, "angry Democrats," ha ha, "they have no message," as if there is a total disconnect. They don't even reply to anything the people say anymore, everything is "How do I neutralize this?" "How do I turn it back on them?"

This is why the only steps toward progress during the whole sad, tragic spectacle of the Bush-Cheney-Halliburton treason have been made by those people who totally ignored how to "tell it" as an ad campaign, and who just stood up and reacted against Bush with either anger or a declaration that enough is enough--whether the older people on Social Security, who have given Bush the clear message several times, or Rep. John Murtha, maybe the single most effective anti-Iraq speaker, because sincere and unpracticed.

There is no news anymore, there aren't really even local stations, only defined-market outlets of the global corporate mouthpiece. There is no sense of the accuracy, clarity or even reality of anything you get from these people. We have no sense anymore that this is even our country or that we have any connection with it anymore, and eventually, it all starts to drive you insane. We have had enough--but the question now is, how do you get the Fairness Doctrine, local independant ownership, and our free press back?

[omega minimo]

38. Dear HS-- Perhaps there's life beyond the Looking Glass

"I believe that "no one believes anything...anymore," and that this is the beginning of the end of the reign of lies and smear campaigns and censorship, not only of the Bush Administration and the corporate/"prick" neo-con Republicans and Iraq, etc., but also of the entire corporate takeover of our society and ways of "public" expression."

"There is no news anymore, there aren't really even local stations, only defined-market outlets of the global corporate mouthpiece. There is no sense of the accuracy, clarity or even reality of anything you get from these people."

"Become the Media" was coined by Jello Biafra of http://www.alternativetentacles.com and that's exactly what he did. (You know about indymedia, too, right?) He inspired and aided many others and not a few brainwashings have been deprogrammed by his work. Your voice is one of the best here. And you can tell those stories of the gutted manufacturing belt-- maybe even of awakenings of those who finally understand how the jobs/globalization dots are connected. In areas where there still are jobs, even as much press as the subject has gotten, folks still feel secure in the American Dream bubble that they know is thinner and thinner and thinner........................................ :crazy:

"We have no sense anymore that this is even our country or that we have any connection with it anymore, and eventually, it all starts to drive you insane. We have had enough--but the question now is, how do you get the Fairness Doctrine, local independant ownership, and our free press back?"

We have to have free and fair elections and we have to confront compliant Congresses that vote to sell out the rights, property and "general welfare" of the American people. NAFTA? GATT? 1996 Telecommunications Act? Even then the blatant manipulation of propaganda in the press was crazymaking-- and Americans couldn't be bothered to care as the nation was sold out from under them.

After watching coverage of the press conference today, I don't think it's OUR sanity we need to be worried about. Or maybe we all need to admit to ourselves and each other how INSANE the situation has become.

:hug:

[coalition_unwilling]

35. I teach English as a Second Language and can

personally attest to the near-universal contempt in which BushInc is held by all my international students (most from Europe and Japan, but many also from Korea and South America).

It's really sad to see how these students have come to see Bush and the American people as quasi-synonymous. I always bring one of my anti-war signs to class so they can see that not every American is a kook.

[omega minimo]

39. No one can understand how the American people were hoodwinked

how we could let this happen to our country.

[coalition_unwilling]

40. The weird thing is that all my students have seen Fahrenheit 9/11,

and I sometimes have to tell them that, at the time it came out, Michael Moore barely scratched the surface.

Because it's an ESL class, I try to discuss American politics while keeping my own views out of it, as hard as that can be sometimes.

[omega minimo]

41. MM's "pranks" gave them a window onto true Democracy

in a way many (most?) Americans can't fathom.

Today John Conyers was on Thom Hartmann's show. He said this has be to a grassroots effort (reining in this administration) percolating upward. He said making a phone call is a start, but that folks need to have personal meetings with their representatives and tell them "This is what we REQUIRE YOU TO DO."

Easier than driving an ice cream truck around the Capitol with a bullhorn :evilgrin:

Sounds like a cool class-- you can learn from each other. Some from repressive countries will say nothing. Ever.

[Hidden Stillness]

42. "..How We Could Let This Happen..."

Well, after dawdling around for several days, I have finally decided to get on it and answer this point. I don't know how much of this you want to get into--it is endless (and endlessly frustrating)--but I do not really agree with the opinion that blames people for "going along" with things, for being ignorant in the current corporate/political climate, or that believes that anything could have been stopped before this point.

The media, of course, is nothing like the old "free press" used to be. Anybody old enough to remember the '60s, '70s, etc., remembers the ordinary, sane coherence of a developing news story, growing social movement, or etc. At first, there would be little coverage as the event went ahead of the curve and very few people even heard of it, then there would later start to be complaints that the press was ignoring the story (I remember this during the feminist early '70s, when they would not cover important stories, or laughed at everything they did, etc.), and then there would be the begininng of a recognition that things had changed and that something new was now appearing. Anybody who followed the news then, whether TV, newspapers, or magazines, could get a good, basic sense of what was going on in the society, of "what time it was," of the issues and of what people were concerned about, or not, or even what kind of society they lived in, basically; issues were covered with more completeness, more time was devoted to explaining things, background, etc., and everything was just more literate and narrative then, not "visual." Single, feature stories on national TV news sometimes ran 15 or more minutes. There is no such social fabric anymore, making the media an extension of the people and their concerns and needs, by design.

After the destruction of the Fairness Doctrine and all other protective measures for citizens, and the destruction of all anti-trust law, the whole focus has shifted, and education is not even the concern anymore; only corporate moneymaking and control. The entire media world has constricted, from a locally-based, national set of industries growing "organically" out of the people and their traits, for them to contact and learn from, to now a very small commercial operation that has no regard whatsoever for societal interests of any kind, and isolated from the population. There actually IS no local broadcasting anymore, only a global corporate monolith, of endlessly repeating messages, endless sales, endless corporate-perspective on everything. (Gone is the once-majority audience of the three networks, replaced with an increasingly fragmented cable sub-set, fracturing and disconnecting to even smaller and smaller parts, the subscribed, tiered, or basic levels of now unrelated audience segments; no social whole anymore.) Now, a criminal corporation is "beleagured" or "under attack," now the stock report is "Your" Money, now a new commercial product being introduced is a "news story." To turn the TV or radio on now, is to get the voice of corporate management piped right into your home, with all accompanying propaganda (is a lawsuit against a corporation ever NOT "frivolous"?).

Things are censored on a level that is hard to imagine, unless you have spent many years reading books, media-critic reports, DU and other websites where people study things, etc., and compare. Everything is completely slanted: a few examples just for reference; EVERYBODY jeered Martha Stewart, yet they barely mention Enron, WorldCom, etc., so that people are not really clear on the issues, and never mention the Bush family or Cheney--they all as one group never even refer anymore to the shooting by a drunken Cheney; EVERYBODY claimed Bush and Republicans wanted to "give seniors a Medicare drug benefit, but Democrats opposed it" (a lie), and now EVERYBODY claims that older people "can't understand" the "plans," rather than explaining that it is deliberately impossible to work correctly, and is commercial, not Medicare. EVERYBODY told Democrats to "get over it," after the 2000 election theft, yet all of them still refer to Clinton's admitted immorality and cheating. You get the idea--information is not available anymore that used to be commonly reported (have you been following this conference on Viet Nam and the Presidency at the Kennedy Library, carried on C-SPAN? That was real reporting). The news is blocked and does not even get out anymore.

The media now is just a corporate pimp, facing you and telling you what the deal is going to be. The only sense you end up with from those people, is total hopelessness in the face of a wall of corrupt, organized, ruthless rich people, stopping you at every turn. There is never a moment during the day when they are not actively manipulating things--the maddening, annoying quick-cuts, flipping the camera around, vulgar filtered color, music everywhere, and complete death of descriptive words, all replaced by "happy-happy" trivia and visuals; it does not surprise me at all that people are so ignorant and so uninterested. I would be surprised if anyone could pick up anything of value from this crap. I also know that people generally are too stressed by bills and other price-gouging, not having enough money, and all the rest, to be concerned by anything that seems so far away and increasingly remote, such as our "national will and purpose," etc. When you do not relate to the income-level of all the people on the media, etc., that only pushes you further away, and makes it seem as if nothing even relates to you anymore. I blame all those fascist corporatists who made the entire media such a worthless place. It will not be replaced by the internet and other things where people tend to go to it alone, though; only the return of a true social construct, a media that is of the people again, regulated, will help return the sense of common will and purpose, and of shared knowledge of things, as one people.

[omega minimo]

43. "What time it is?"

:hi:

You beautifully described the hoodwinkification and I will still say that we let it happen.

That "we" may be those who remember that different media/political/social era; who observed the coagulation of all media, recognized the dangers to come and were alarmed. What did "we" do about it?

The Founders have pointed out the importance of an informed citizenry with due diligence. What happened? Where is the transition of awareness from that time to this? It's like people went to sleep for 25 years and just woke up. There was a thread today on "bringin back the 60's (spirit)." Ya know, that is just great but excuse me while I :puke: WHERE DID PEOPLE GO?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11

Honest to gawdz, if we couldn't pay attention long enough to prevent these unbelievable travesties through activism and legislation, despite --and BECAUSE OF --the hoodwinkified media and now want to talk about TRYING TO UNDO ALL THE DAMAGE... I'm sorry, that just pissses me off. It's fuckin pathetic.

I began to answer you thinking "how can I say this without sounding like I blame the old hippie/boomers and I promised I would quit asking this question that no one will ask, let alone answer..." and tscha-- ya know what? There is no excuse for it. Unless I expect too much from the "turn on/tune out" generation. They tuned out the disassembling of our nation.

The best answers to this I've gotten are from Cindy Sheehan, Sean Penn and George Orwell. Or the phrase "Denial is not just a river in Egypt."


And I'm wrong, of course, this is how it has to be, history has to repeat itself, the pendulum has to swing and the evil bastards have to undo all good works, people have to focus on their lives of quiet desperation and shift focus from the Big Picture-- and the ADDH Nation has to disappear the past and ignore the future.

Thanks so much for another brilliant post, HS :hug:

[Hidden Stillness]

48. I Don't Want No Hippies

Well, I think part of my opinion about not blaming people for not stopping these huge, destructive corporate forces, and being fooled by them, etc., is my realization over the years that the things that actually end up changing society are a mystery, sometimes the best-organized protests make it worse or have no effect, and that you can't just improve things any old time you want.

You referred to the sixties/hippies, etc., and being disappointed by them; it may surprise you to know (or maybe not) that I actually hate hippies, always have. I have always considered most hippies to be pretentious phonies who took credit for things they never accomplished, and who were really only interested in the drugs. I have a very personal reason for this opinion--a family member became a hippie toward the end of the sixties, got into drugs, suffered permanent brain damage and schizophrenia--(oh yes it does happen, and there is nothing colder than a hippie when you are no longer for drugs). Now, it is always the Viet Nam era, and always will be. I have been thinking about this series of panels on the Viet Nam War and the Presidency, just on C-SPAN, because it reminded me of what I also believe really turned people against the war, and it was not protesters, who usually just got people as pissed off as the protesters were. On the Media and Public Opinion panel, Dan Rather gave the opinion that TV did not turn people against the Viet Nam war, but (for example) the nice young kid who used to be on the high school football team returning home with horrific injuries, or most of all, the thousands of flag-draped coffins after the escalation of the war, turned people against it.

It reminded me of a few examples that I actually remember from that time, when "the older kids" got drafted and went to Viet Nam, and a few cases of neighborhood kids who previously been nice, happy, mowed the lawn for you, etc., but when they came back they were changed, different, weird. They had lost their personalities, were only bitter, would tell you about how the government was lying, that they would see their friends all around them, dead, then hear the official stats, "no casualties today"; they sometimes sounded very anti-American, or like hippies, anti-war, and it was with very mixed feelings that you listened to these totally new opinions from some of these people, because they were the soldiers themselves. Worst of all, they went to war wanting to save and help people, and came back addicted to drugs, crushed. I remember how the opinions of the adults changed: they became more and more outraged and perplexed by all of this, especially after the triumph of World War II, and the fact that America had never lost a war, as they always used to say. The opinion about it became like, "What the hell is this war doing to our kids?" That was what made "Middle America" turn against the war--how it was destroying the good kids who came home broken, not protesters.

The evil of the Republican/Reagan '80s tricked people because those bastards were doing things that had not been done before, so you were not ready for the way they attacked you. You do know, don't you, that the Republican Party had colluded with the Iranians to hold those poor Embassy hostages some months extra just so they would be released when the bastard took office, and Pres. Carter, who had actually negotiated their release, would not have the happiness of having achieved it, but it was made to seem like Reagan's accomplishment. You have to be really evil to do a thing like that, yet, before it was proven, if you had told people, who would have believed it? The first time I heard a whole program of lies and ulterior motive presented as fact, where everything they said was a lie and covered up something else--which you were not going to understand until later, when you were actually hit with it and it was too late--was during the Reagan era. Remember when Reagan went on this big campaign against "Japan bashing," and it seemed almost like a courageous attempt to fight against bigotry, and then it turned out Reagan had been paid over a million dollars from a Japanese firm, and it was all just a corporate deal benefitting Reagan, and Reagan's approval numbers dropped? Remember the suffering economy under Carter, and Reagan's 1980 bumpersticker "Reagan for Jobs"--the last person in the world who would have worried about the peons' jobs? You cannot realize, until you have some kind of experience or proof, what level these people can be on, and that every goddamned thing they said was a lie.

It also does not impress people when all of a sudden today, you have "brave protesters," who up until this very moment had never been known for any such thing. Wasn't Sean Penn only "famous" for beating Madonna until she got a divorce? Now of course, they are all saints (now that the way has been paved by others), and everybody else is at fault. The criticism does not apply to Cindy Sheehan, even though she too has made some pretty unconstructive remarks against Sen. Dianne Feinstein, I think. Attack the fucking Republicans and corporate media! Never underestimate the fact, always, that if you are middle class, any rich capitalist devil can come along and squash you like a bug, any old time. You really are actually threatened. Just think about all of the filth they have been doing to us lately--the most horrific, record-breaking price- and bill- gouging, the Bankruptcy and "Medicare" prescription bills, the South Dakota abortion ban, all the rest; which the people were not for and did not support, none of it--and notice how easily they did all of it. If you do not have power, you are cut off, and you and your opinions will not make an impression. Only the great mass wave of the people will, and like it or not, that takes years and years and years.

[Doctor_J]

46. When the tab comes due for the ruin of our democracy,

people like Hannity, Limpballs, O'Reilly, Ingraham, Coulter, and Tweety will find themselves in an especially toasty corner of hell.

[Doctor_J]

44. 40% don't understand a word of what he says,

and of the 60%, about 90% don't believe it. I think even the most devoted Dittiots listen to him say "threat" 20 times inside of a minute and realize that he's basically a vegetable wearing a flag lapel pin. On the upside, his instability probably keeps our enemies from doing something to provoke him.