Silliness and Accountability

"I now have Bushaccrountrabrillitry! North Korea controls the world!!"

Does the fact that President Bush has done nothing about North Korea other than to issue bellicose and grandstanding statements and to engage in magical thinking about how the Chinese were going to keep the nuclear genie in the bottle in any way entail that he bears any responsibility whatsoever for North Korea being a kinda nuclear power?

That, is a silly question.

From today's press briefing with the former (cough) FOX News purty-boy and current White House Press Secretary Tony Snow condescending to the Great Unwashed Press Corps:

Q Looking back, is there anything that the President would have done differently? Does he believe he has made any mistakes in this?

MR. SNOW: Oh, my goodness, that's -- you know --

Q It's a fair question.

MR. SNOW: No, it's a silly question.

Q Why is that a silly question?

MR. SNOW: Yes, yes, it is a silly question because --

Q You just talked about --

MR. SNOW: Well, let me ask you -- give me some characterization of what you might think. Because what typically happens is that any answer to that question is spun into, "President Made Mistakes, Regrets."

[snip]

Q The notion that that's a silly question, when you have a President who draws a red line three years ago and says, we will not tolerate nuclear weapons, and now you have a country that just tested a nuclear weapon -- you don't think it's fair to ask for some accountability as to what happened, or that there were mistakes made?

MR. SNOW: David, the accountability lies in North Korea, not in Washington.

And now a word from the Mountain Philosopher. As a social studies teacher, I have a passing awareness of world geography as well as civics. And I could have sworn that Accountability did indeed lie in Washington, DC. But I checked my updated, Pentagon-issued maps this evening, and DAMMIT!.....Tony Snow is RIGHT!!!...Bush Accountability does indeed lie in North Korea!....see for yourself:

We now return you to your regularly scheduled BS-fest already in progress....

Q That's it? There's no accountability for when this country engages in diplomatic activity or warfare, it doesn't have anything to do -- there's no accountability within this government?

MR. SNOW: This government is held accountable all the time. As a matter of fact, the President even gets held accountable when gas prices fall beyond his ability to influence --

Q You just said it was silly --

MR. SNOW: You know what, okay, let me --

Q -- it was silly ask whether lessons were learned --

MR. SNOW: Thank you. No, no, no -- it was silly to say, does he think he made mistakes and that kind of thing.

Q Right. You think that's a silly notion, a silly question.

MR. SNOW: I think what it is, is a gratuitous question in the sense that when it is asked, it is not asked in the context of, what are your strategic considerations, what is brought to bear. Instead it is asked -- and maybe I'm being unfair, Cheryl -- in the context of a "gotcha" question that is designed to paper over the immense difficulties that are involved in the activities of dozens and dozens of people who devote their lives to trying to get this right.

And then Mr. Snow walked out.....