Dr. Strange Bush

Or how I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb...

Bush's press conference today about Russia, Iran and his love with Putin wowed me when I read this in the New York Times:

“If Iran had a nuclear weapon, it’d be a dangerous threat to world peace,” Mr. Bush said. “So I told people that if you’re interested in avoiding World War III, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing them from having the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon.”

After reading, I immediately had to find an image more fitting than the usual, Nero-emulating smirk. Courtesy of Fergie's Tech Blog, one can see Bush riding the Bomb, cowboy hat in hand.

Bush still alleges that a diplomatic solution is preferred, but should I hold my breath?

Talk of World War III comes one day after Bush's best buddy, Vladdy Putin, met with Iran's Ahmadinejad to denounce any military strikes.

True to prior behavior, Bush is clinging to a false sense of hope, or at least he wants America to do so: "(Bush) said he believed that Russia still wanted to stop Iran from developing such weapons."

In the midst of all this tomfoolery, saying World War III could happen, denying Putin's obvious courtship of Iran, empty overtures to diplomacy, I ask myself: Does it really matter what this guy says anymore? Even if he turns hints of war into outright threats, does he have the power to make it happen?

Dan Froomkin at the WaPo (reg. req.) seems to think not, noting that Bush's approval rating hovered around 24 percent in the latest Zogby poll.

With President Bush having to insist that, "I am relevant," it would seem that the reporter had already answered his own question. The relevance of any leader seems to be minute when said leader has to remind how he actually is an important guy to whom people oughtta listen.

But Bush did have a point...

He referenced his veto of a bipartisan supported expansion of children's health care as an example of his relevance. Bush holds an uncanny ability to be able to screw things up, through negligence or obliviousness, despite the opposition of experts and large swaths of people.

Just look at the (overall) idiots running for the GOP nomination, save Ron Paul. They clamor over who's tougher on Iran, who wants to expand Guantanamo More, who most likes the television series "24," who hates killing babies the most, and who gets the most one-on-one time with God.

Whose to say a World War III couldn't happen? Irrelevance, incompetence?

Nah...