Why not just say "He's a schmuck, but he's our schmuck"?

And one from the "piss down my back and tell me it's raining" file:

President Bush yesterday offered his strongest support of embattled Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, saying the general "hasn't crossed the line" and "truly is somebody who believes in democracy."

Bush spoke nearly three weeks after Musharraf declared emergency rule, sacked members of the Supreme Court and began a roundup of journalists, lawyers and human rights activists. Musharraf's government yesterday released about 3,000 political prisoners, although 2,000 remain in custody, according to the Interior Ministry.
[snip]

Several outside analysts and a key Democratic lawmaker expressed incredulity over Bush's comments and called them a sign of how personally invested the president has become in the U.S. relationship with Musharraf.

"What exactly would it take for the president to conclude Musharraf has crossed the line? Suspend the constitution? Impose emergency law? Beat and jail his political opponents and human rights activists?" asked Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a presidential candidate. "He's already done all that. If the president sees Musharraf as a democrat, he must be wearing the same glasses he had on when he looked in Vladimir Putin's soul."

It may very well be that Musharraf is the US' best hope for keeping Pakistan, and its nuclear weapons, out of the hands of the Taliban, Osama Bin Laden, and the many other Bad Operators™ lurking in the mountains. But that doesn't make him a beacon of democratic hope.

Of course, given how George W. Bush has run his own government, it's clear that his definition of "democracy" isn't exactly the one the rest of us have.