Bush to Ahmadinejad: Pot calling kettle black

In his 60 Minutes interview with President Ahmadinejad of Iran, yesterday, correspondent Scott Pelley displayed all the swagger of a surrogate George W. Bush -- right down to the total absence of awareness of the irony in his own words.

At one point, Pelley told Ahmadinejad the following:

"I asked President Bush what he would say to you if he were sitting in this chair. And he told me, quote, speaking to you, that you've made terrible choices for your people. You've isolated your nation. You've taken a nation of proud and honorable people and made your country the pariah of the world."

Those words sounded strangely familiar. As they should. The message that Pelley delivered to Ahmadinejad from Bush is simply a regurgitation of the message that a group of 26 Republican and Democratic military leaders and diplomats, calling itself, *Diplomats and Military Commanders for Change, sent to the American people about Bush, himself, three years earlier, when advocating for a change of leadership in the 2004 presidential election.

From the statement:

"Instead of building upon America's great economic and moral strength to lead other nations in a coordinated campaign to address the causes of terrorism and to stifle its resources, the administration, motivated more by ideology than by reasoned analysis, struck out on its own. It led the United States into an ill-planned and costly war from which exit is uncertain. It justified the invasion of Iraq by manipulation of uncertain intelligence about weapons of mass destruction and by a cynical campaign to persuade the public that Saddam Hussein was linked to Al-Qaida and the attacks of Sept. 11. The evidence did not support this argument.

"Our security has been weakened...

"Public opinion polls throughout the world report hostility toward us... Never in the 2¼ centuries of our history has the United States been so isolated among the nations, so broadly feared and distrusted."

In other words, Bush had made terrible choices for his people; had isolated the United States of America; and made it the pariah of the world.

*(The Diplomats and Military Commanders for Change group included Reagan's chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Admiral William Crowe; Reagan's Ambassador to the Soviet Union, Jack Matlock; Carter's CIA director, Stansfield Turner; and George H.W. Bush's Air Force chief of staff, Tony McPeak.)