Hope and Change, Bitchez

Because I am a stupid ingrate who doesn't understand how politics works, this is the sort of thing that makes me very angry:

President Barack Obama is meeting with former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to talk about a pending arms treaty with Russia and other issues.

A White House official said Rice and Obama have a "cordial relationship," and the president looks forward to Friday's meeting covering "a range of foreign policy topics." The official isn't authorized to speak publicly and insisted on anonymity.

Pathetic. As if this isn't a sop to the conservatives who the administration are INFUCKINGEXPLICABLY convinced will vote for them, if only they throw their base under the bus hard enough and look enough like the detestable Bush administration—a sop that's politically useless unless someone "leaks" it to the wire services.

Glenn notes why inviting one of the architects of the Bush torture regime to sit at the foreign policy table is evidence of, among other things, a fervent desire to maintain the status quo in Washington, rather than challenge it in even the most cursory way:

I realize this is very childish, shrill and unpragmatic of me. All Serious people know that it's critical to let Bygones be Bygones and that Serious National Security officials must meet with one another across partisan lines to share their wisdom and insights. Still, the fact that Obama is not only shielding from all accountability, but meeting in the Oval Office with, the person who presided over the Bush White House's torture-approval-and-choreographing meetings and who was responsible for the single most fear-mongering claim leading to the Iraq War, speaks volumes about the accountability-free nature of Washington culture and this White House.

Let us recall, with bitter irony, that this was eminently predictable, but, when I wrote that post, pre-Disqus commenting system, it garnered about 400 comments, most of which were accusing me of being a racist hysteric who was in the bag for Clinton.

Good times.

[Previously in Third Term of Bush: One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten, Eleven, Twelve, Thirteen, Fourteen, Fifteen, Sixteen, Seventeen, and there are about a zillion more, but you get the drift.]