Sunday Morning - I'm watching 'This Week with George Stephanopoulos'. After a grating segment with Bill Frist and Nancy Pelosi, the next guests were the two chairmen, Ed Gillespie (RNC Chairman) and Terry McAuliffe (DNC Chairman).
I seem to end up listening to these guys quite a bit. Depending on what day you get me, Ed Gillespie is either the slimiest character in the GOP filth machine, or else a more-or-less professional. A professional scumbag maybe, but a professional.
Terry Mac is his own deal. He catches a lot of shit among Democrats for his role as Collector-In-Chief. For guys like Ralph Nader, who the other day called the DNC Chairman a "jungle fighter," McAuliffe is the symbol of all that is decadent and corrupt with the Democratic party. What gets ignored in the analysis is the importance of money in fighting off GOP attack ads. As much as we lament it, a lot of voters cast their ballots on the basis of information gleaned from TV advertisements. When the GOP is running ads comparing war veterans to Saddam Hussein, running footage of men kissing at the alter in rural districts, claiming John Kerry actually spent the Vietnam war at Club Med (okay not that one), Democrats need money - and TV ads - to counteract the slime.
So between Ed and Terry, I think Terry is actually the more effective spokesperson. You wouldn't get that sense based on the way each man is treated within his own party, but I think it's true. Gillespie alternates between sputtering mock-rage and hopeless shilling, McAuliffe is harder to knock off his game. Oddest moment: Ed Gilespie declaring that "the most dangerous place to be on Tuesday will be between a GOP voter and the polling booth." Uh, okay GOP voter. Just try to focus all that blind rage that fuels your reason for living. No reason to make it "dangerous." Though I'm sure you would like nothing more.
Well, that certainly looks like a wire.
Oct. 29, 2004 | George W. Bush tried to laugh off the bulge. "I don't know what that is," he said on "Good Morning America" on Wednesday, referring to the infamous protrusion beneath his jacket during the presidential debates. "I'm embarrassed to say it's a poorly tailored shirt."
Dr. Robert M. Nelson, however, was not laughing. He knew the president was not telling the truth. And Nelson is neither conspiracy theorist nor midnight blogger. He's a senior research scientist for NASA and for Caltech's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and an international authority on image analysis. Currently he's engrossed in analyzing digital photos of Saturn's moon Titan, determining its shape, whether it contains craters or canyons.
For the past week, while at home, using his own computers, and off the clock at Caltech and NASA, Nelson has been analyzing images of the president's back during the debates. A professional physicist and photo analyst for more than 30 years, he speaks earnestly and thoughtfully about his subject. "I am willing to stake my scientific reputation to the statement that Bush was wearing something under his jacket during the debate," he says. "This is not about a bad suit. And there's no way the bulge can be described as a wrinkled shirt."
Okay then. I like the part in the article that states Dr. Nelson "admits to being a Democrat." Ah-HA! Then he previews Ed Gilespie's next attack line: "Everyone wants to think my colleague and I are just a bunch of dope-crazed ravaged Democrats who are looking to insult the president at the last minute..." Cue RNC footage of 28 Days Later.
I should write attack ads for a living.
Article (Note: Salon makes you watch an ad to view the full article, but you can see the enhanced photo by just clicking on the link.)
The New York Review of Books solicits the opinions of some of its most notable contributors on the upcoming U.S. election. Interesting reading if you can find the time. Some highlights:
Ian Buruma draws an interesting parallel between the current U.S. regime and and Margaret Thather's reign
I am often reminded, in the US today, of Britain during the twilight years of Margaret Thatcher's rule. Then, too, hard-line Tories talked a great deal about battling for freedom and the like, but usually in a snarling, spitting, fearful rage against "Europe." The Battle of Britain would be invoked against trade policies hashed out in Brussels. D-Day would be remembered in fishery disputes. And Winston Churchill was regularly trotted out as the spirit incarnated by the first female Tory Party leader.
This is promising, if only for the hope that the GOP in America might be heading the way of the Tories. It could happen.
Norman Mailer, as always, has some interesting thoughts on the election as well.
It is cruel but true that he (Bush) has the vulnerability of an ex-alcoholic.
People in Alcoholics Anonymous speak of themselves as dry drunks. As they see it, they may no longer drink, yet a sense of imbalance at having to do without liquor does not go away. Rather the impulse is sequestered behind the faith that God is supporting one's efforts to remain sober.
Giving up booze may have been the most heroic act of George W.'s life, but America could now be paying the price. George W.'s piety has become a pomade to cover all the tamped-down dry-drunk craziness that still stirs in his livid inner air.
It’s an exceedingly interesting point. Without booze, Bush has substituted one crutch for another. Before reading this, I had never been really convinced that Bush had completely kicked his drinking habit. But now I wonder. And this is simply a fantastic line:
Bush's first confidence, after all, is that the devil will never desert him in his hour of need. His only error is that he thinks it is the Son who is speaking to him."
And Edmund S. Morgan echoes many of my own thoughts. If Kerry loses, it won't be because of the media.
In the eyes of the world the ultimate accountability lies not with the President or his men. In the end it lies with the sovereign people of the United States. The government is our government, resting on our choices and supported in all its activities by our taxes. We may claim with some reason that the last election was stolen, but we have had to accept the result. In the last analysis people get the government they deserve, and ours, more directly than most, is the product of our choice. We have been credited, rightly, for what it has done in the past, for standing up, however belatedly, to the Nazis, for assisting the recovery of Europe under the Marshall Plan, for containing the threat of imperial communism. We cannot now escape credit for what our government has so shamefully done. We began as a people with "a decent respect for the opinions of mankind," and we won admiration for it. We have now lost the good opinion of mankind and with it the self-respect of decent Americans.
Election Thoughts by Famous People. Yea!!!!
No one ever say irony, and the ability to recognize it when bit in the ass by said irony, was Bush’s strong suit.
"This investigation is important and it's ongoing, and a political candidate who jumps to conclusions without knowing the facts is not a person you want as your commander in chief."
I agree. Someone who’s going to make decisions about war and peace based on half-assed intelligence and wanton disregard for the facts should not be commander-in-chief.
This is the best though:
`If Senator Kerry had his way ... Saddam Hussein would still be in power, he would control all those weapons and explosives and could have shared them with our terrorist enemies,'' Bush said.
Yeah. This way, those weapons were distributed much more quickly and efficiently. George Bush - Improving the speed of weapons distribution.
Update: I see Wes Clark has my back on this one.
Today George W. Bush made a very compelling and thoughtful argument for why he should not be reelected. In his own words, he told the American people that "... a political candidate who jumps to conclusions without knowing the facts is not a person you want as your Commander in Chief".
President Bush couldn't be more right. He jumped to conclusions about any connection between Saddam Hussein and 911. He jumped to conclusions about weapons of mass destruction. He jumped to conclusions about the mission being accomplished. He jumped to conclusions about how we had enough troops on the ground to win the peace. And because he jumped to conclusions, terrorists and insurgents in Iraq may very well have their hands on powerful explosives to attack our troops, we are stuck in Iraq without a plan to win the peace, and Americans are less safe both at home and abroad.
By doing all these things, he broke faith with our men and women in uniform. He has let them down. George W. Bush is unfit to be our Commander in Chief.
Four-star Generals read Mike's Blog.
No shit. Go ahead and look at this picture and then tell me otherwise. This revelation is of course a result of the photographs showing a protrusion beneath Bush's coat during the first debate. Bilbo Baggins says it was just the suit.
Oh yeah. And Bilbo's real name is Georges de Paris. He might as well be named Frenchy McFrench.
I do like this quote though:
De Paris said journalists all over the world have called him about the bulge, but he’s heeded a White House aide’s advice “not to talk to anybody or comment on it,” until now.
“When they call, I tell them I’m in Canada. One French paper said, ‘Do you speak French?’ and I said, ‘No, I speak Spanish.’ They ask for my cell phone and I tell them Georges is on a plane and you can’t reach him.”
Of course you can't Frenchy....of course you can't.
Sunday, NYT - Page 1
In early November 2001, with Americans still staggered by the Sept. 11 attacks, a small group of White House officials worked in great secrecy to devise a new system of justice for the new war they had declared on terrorism.
Let's think about that. We live in a country in which political appointees of the executive can gather "in great secrecy" to constuct "a new system of justice." Just get your head around that one.
White House officials said their use of extraordinary powers would allow the Pentagon to collect crucial intelligence and mete out swift, unmerciful justice. "We think it guarantees that we'll have the kind of treatment of these individuals that we believe they deserve," said Vice President Dick Cheney, who was a driving force behind the policy.
Uh-huh. This cabal is led by Dick Cheney. Now, if a lawyer were the driving force behind this, I don't think I would feel one bit better. But at least a lawyer would draw on his or her experience with, you know, the law, in devising this "new system of justice."
We've cleared whole forests of paper developing procedures for these tribunals, and no one has been tried yet," said Richard L. Shiffrin, who worked on the issue as the Pentagon's deputy general counsel for intelligence matters. "They just ended up in this Kafkaesque sort of purgatory."
You think? If I were the kind of man who doubted his own government, I might mistake this whole charade for a Kafka tale.
Military lawyers were largely excluded from that process in the days after Sept. 11. They have since waged a long struggle to ensure that terrorist prosecutions meet what they say are basic standards of fairness. Uniformed lawyers now assigned to defend Guantánamo detainees have become among the most forceful critics of the Pentagon's own system.
Yeah. God forbid someone consult military lawyers to construct military law in this "new system of justice." Might end up too much like the "old system of justice."
Mr. Yoo (John Yoo, Dept. Of Justice, Office of Legal Counsel) listed an inventory of possible operations: shooting down a civilian airliner hijacked by terrorists; setting up military checkpoints inside an American city; employing surveillance methods more sophisticated than those available to law enforcement; or using military forces "to raid or attack dwellings where terrorists were thought to be, despite risks that third parties could be killed or injured by exchanges of fire."
This guy was 34 at the time. He, and others like him, conducted the most massive re-alignment of U.S. military law in the past 60 years. Mr. Yoo is not even a military lawyer, much less an elected official. This article is pretty clear that even Bush himself was only tangentially aware of new directives as they were being constructed.
There really isn't anything new in this article, that is, if you've been paying close attention. I've read about all of this, just not in one place. Nor has all this been spelled out so clearly before. For me, it's an excellent synthesis of three years of legal abuse.
Full Article. Much more abuse.
Yesteday, the Washington Post ran a lengthy, critical report on the Bush administration's planning for the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. Naturally, Scott McClellan tried to dismiss the piece away, just as he has done in the past when his boss has been confronted with any kind of criticism. Below are some of the damning excerpts, with commentary. All typeface in bold is my emphasis
Bush emphasizes force of will -- determination to prosecute the enemy, and equally to stand up to allies who disapprove. Bush and his aides most often deflect questions about recent global polls that have found sharply rising anti-U.S. sentiment in Arab and Muslim countries and in Europe, but one of them addressed it in a recent interview. Speaking for the president by White House arrangement, but declining to be identified, a high-ranking national security official said of the hostility detected in surveys: "I don't think it matters. It's about keeping the country safe, and I don't think that matters."
The last quote is especially revealing. While it fits in well with the tough-guy act, 'we do what's right, not what's popular' facade, the quote is deeply indicative of criminal negligence. It's also perhaps the worst attitude one could take when ostensibly fighting a "war on terror." Could rising hostility in “Arab and Muslim” countries foreshadow negative consequences for the United States? Not according to this administration. Nope, they “don’t think it matters.” They’re wrong.
I’ve said it before, but here it is again: The most effective anti-terrorism strategy is to address the motives and underlying causes of terrorism. This also happens to be the most difficult strategy. Bombing poverty-stricken countries, while perhaps cathartic, is at best ineffective and and worst counter-productive. This country is not willling to address these issues anytime soon.
More significant than the bottom line, government analysts said, is the trend. Of the al Qaeda leaders accounted for, eight were killed or captured by the end of 2002. Five followed in 2003 -- notably Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the principal planner of the Sept. 11 attack. This year only one more name -- Hassan Ghul, a senior courier captured infiltrating Iraq -- could be crossed off.
Here, there’s too much of a tendency to parrot White House claims. Anyone who follows this kind of thing in any sort of passive way knows the name Khalid Sheik Mohammed. What’s not known is who this guy really is. Amid much fanfare and swooshing Fox News “Breaking Story” clip-art, this guy was captured in the Spring of 2003. The White House released a photo of Mohammad looking exhausted and broken, then claimed that the guy in the photo “masterminded” the 9/11 attack. Oh, really? Why do you say that? (Deafening Silence) For all I know, this guy could have masterminded the attack. Or he might have been masterminding a pizza hut. The public hasn't been given any other information about this guy, just official, Ari Fleisher pronouncements. Now the Washington Post repeats it as gospel.
Ditto for Hassan Ghul. A “senior courier,” eh? We have one of those where I work. He’s in charge of the copy machine. Sorry, he “masterminds” the copy machine. Ghul is another guy whose picture was trotted out to the press and seized on by uberhacks like Bill Safire, who claimed that this interloper seized ex post facto in Iraq was definitive proof of a “longstanding” Al-Qaeda/Iraq nexus. Again, the public hasn’t been told anything other than White House spin.
Although some of the administration's assertions are too broadly stated to measure, some are not. Townsend, Bush's homeland security and counterterrorism adviser, said "three-quarters" of "the known al Qaeda leaders on 9/11" were dead or in custody. Asked to elaborate, she said she would have to consult a list. White House spokeswoman Erin Healy referred follow-up questions to the FBI. Spokesmen for the FBI, the National Security Council and the CIA did not respond to multiple telephone calls and e-mails.
Effective debunking job here. But why be so coy? This is White House propaganda. Full stop. Let's call it that.
Townsend, the White House terrorism and homeland security adviser, gives two framed courtroom sketches from a former life a place of honor on her West Wing wall. The color portraits, from 1990, depict her as lead prosecutor in a case against New York's Gambino crime family. When she took her White House job in May, she told the Associated Press that the transition from organized crime to terrorism "actually turns out not to be that big a leap." She added, "Really in many ways you're talking about a group with a command-and-control structure."
Oh, really? I thought we weren’t supposed to acknowledge these kinds of similarities. I thought treating terrorism as a “law enforcement” issue was weak, or a flip-flop or wait, no, too liberal or something like that? Nevermind. And didn’t we hear at the beginning of this article that al-qaeda is not, in fact, “command and control”?
Jihadists (sic) "metastasized into a lot of little cancers in a lot of different countries," Gordon said recently. They formed "groups, operating under the terms of a movement, who don't have to rely on al Qaeda itself for funding, for training or for authority. [They operate] at a level that doesn't require as many people, doesn't require them to be as well-trained, and it's going to be damned hard to get in front of that."
Doesn't sound like command and control to me. That's because it isn't. Incidentally, the very phrase "command and control" was often used to describe the Soviet economy (a generally correct term in this instance.) To my ear, Townsend's use of this term sounds like that a pathetic attempt to graft the language of yesterday's public enemy onto today's. Just speculating.
The brutal challenge for U.S. intelligence, Sageman said, is that "you don't know who's going to be a terrorist" anymore. Citing the 15 men who killed 190 passengers on March 11 in synchronized bombings of the Spanish rail system, he said "if you had gone to those guys in Madrid six months prior, they'd say 'We're not terrorists,' and they weren't. Madrid took like five weeks from inception."
Interesting. This would fly in the face of Bush's lump of terrorism fallacy (i.e. no new 'terrorists' created as a by-product of 'fighting terrorism'.
New jihadists (sic) can acquire much of the know-how they need, Sageman and his counterparts still in government said, in al Qaeda's Saudi-published magazines, Al Baatar and the Voice of Jihad, available online.
al-qaeda has a magazine? This sounds fishy. At the very least, it sounds like a stretch.
Most officials interviewed said Bush has not devised an answer to a problem then-CIA Director George J. Tenet identified publicly on Feb. 11, 2003 -- "the numbers of societies and peoples excluded from the benefits of an expanding global economy, where the daily lot is hunger, disease, and displacement -- and that produce large populations of disaffected youth who are prime recruits for our extremist foes."
The president and his most influential advisers, many officials said, do not see those factors -- or U.S. policy overseas -- as primary contributors to the terrorism threat. Bush's explanation, in private and public, is that terrorists hate America for its freedom.
Sageman, who supports some of Bush's approach, said that analysis is "nonsense, complete nonsense
Wow. That right there is the reason these guys need to go. If that won’t convince you, nothing will. Even though I’ve heard Bush use the “terrorists hate us for our freedom” line dozens of times, I’m shocked to read that that is his explanation in private as well. He really does belive his own bullshit. Get rid of him now. Absolutely stunning.
There's a lot more in here worth reading, notably, how the administration blew a lot of opportunities by his refusal to cooperate with Iran in any way. I don't know how much longer this can go on while the public sleeps.
Wash Post: Afghanistan, Iraq: Two Wars Collide
Edgar Renteria - you bunting, base-running, ridiculous play making muthafucka.....you are the man.
Larry Walker - You're goofy and Canadien. And you can swing the stick.
Scotty Rolen - I heard somebody in the office today that lately you couldn't hit water if you fell into it. I'm going to blow an air horn in his office tomorrow after that home run.
Jimmy Baseball - ... is a man-god.
Mike Matheny is a brick. To prepare for games he has Pujols hit him with a hammer. In the face.
Jose Alberto - so good I can't write his full name
Jeff Suppan (SOUP'S ON!) - Who knew? So clutch.
Roger Cedeno - Fast. And Pesky. And awesome.
Julian (who-li-ON) Tavarez - you're a weirdo and a drama queen who has skin the texture of a man's scrotum. And you're beautiful.
Tony Womack - don't kill yourself dude before the next series. Let Larry Walker get that ball....shit! But that was good.
Jason Isringhausen - Izzy good or what?
Sanders, Kiko, Kline, SO!, Anderson, Woody, Mo, The Marquis, Carpenter, Burger King, Mabry (Mabry he won't get out....Mabry not), Hector Lunacy, Yadier (Pudge II), and......
TONY LARUSSA!!!!!!!!!!! You Never get the fucking respect that you deserve and this city owes you. Let's hope this makes people realize.
No props to Cal Eldred. Bring back Lankford.
Wonkette - It's funnier than this drab-ass blog. Here's an example.
There's a new wave of BC04 attack ads based on the New York Times Magazine article about Kerry's foreign policy, which contained this controversial quote:
''You know, when your buildings are bombed and 3,000 people get killed, and airplanes are hijacked, and a nation is terrorized the way we were, and people continue to plot to do you injury, that's an act of war, and it's serious business."
We've obtained the script:
Voice Over: First, Kerry said he wanted to protect America. . .
Now John Kerry says he wants "buildings. . . bombed," the "nation. . . terrorized" and he will "continue to plot to do you injury." John Kerry says terrorism is his "business."
Terrorism… a business?
How can Kerry protect the country when he wants to kill us all?
President Bush:
I’m George W. Bush and I approve this message.
Yes. Definately funnier.
The AP Headline, "Bush, Cheney Concede Iraq Had No WMDs"
I'm shocked. No, seriously. I'm shocked that these two would come ever come close to admitting this, much less flat out saying it. Here are the actual quotes.
On Thursday, the president used the clearest language to date nailing the question shut:
"Iraq did not have the weapons that our intelligence believed were there," Bush said. His words placed the blame on U.S. intelligence agencies.
As for Cheney: "The headlines all say `no weapons of mass destruction stockpiled in Baghdad.' We already knew that."
For a long time, I thought that these two had repeated their big lie regarding weapons so often that they actually believed their own bullshit. That's the only way big lies are effective - to repeat them so often that you, the liar, becomes a true believer. But maintaining a lie like that is an enormous strain. Eventually, you admit the truth or you snap.
This is going to be the nail in the coffin of the Bush-Cheney oligarchy. No boasting, no wishful thinking, just gut feeling. This admission will bury them.
Post -debate newsweek poll: Kerry pulls ahead.
So now that some new polls are out that more accurately portray the ACTUAL mood of voters, can Democrats now take a deep breath and get on with, you know, winning this fucking election.
The recent Harris Interactive/Wall Street Journal poll, completed on Sept. 13, shows Kerry with 48 percent, Bush with 47 percent and Ralph Nader with 2 percent. Those results were nearly identical to the last Harris poll, taken before the Republican Convention, when Kerry was ahead by 1 point. The most noticeable shift in this poll's results is that the 10-point lead Bush enjoyed last June is gone. More than half of the respondents think Bush "doesn't deserve to be reelected [sic]."
The most recent poll by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press shows the Bush lead falling precipitously during the past week. Between Sept. 8 and Sept. 10, Bush was ahead of Kerry by 54 to 38 among "likely voters" -- but between Sept. 11 and Sept. 14, that gap diminished to Bush 47 versus Kerry 46.
A week ago, the Economist released a new YouGov poll, which employs online technology developed by a British survey firm, and found Bush ahead of Kerry by a single point, 47 to 46. To the magazine's editors this represents an "impressive" result for Bush because more than 56 percent of the voters polled by YouGov say they are "dissatisfied with the way things are going in the United States at this time."
I’m not going to make some silly statement like, “The only poll that matters is the one on election day.” While granting that statement to be true, in a silly, junior-high wisdom sort of way, good polls are useful tools. But they ain’t everything. Anyone remember the days after the 2000 Republican convention in Philadelphia? After the convention, Bush opened up a 17 MOTHERFUCKING POINT LEAD on Al Gore. Then after the Dem convention, Gore made most of that up, then slipped back further, etc. Of course, then Gore went on to win the popular vote by half a million votes. NO ONE, not even the Harris poll cited above, generally regarded as one of the best out there, predicted this result. (Harris is the Wall Street Journal house polling company. They’re motto - “We don’t fuck around when it comes to polling”)
So please, less gossiping and backbiting in regards to Kerry’s campaign team and a bit more confidence. Voters like a winner. Like Nancy Pelosi says, “No whining, just winning.”
http://www.salon.com/opinion/conason/2004/09/17/polls/index.html
If a redneck shoots a bear in the middle of the forest, does John Kerry lose an electoral vote?
He might if that state is Maine. So here’s a brief summary of Maine’s system for apportioning electoral votes. Maine has four votes, two of which automatically go to the winner of the state popular vote (standard fare). Maine then has two other votes, one for each of its congressional districts. The winner of the popular vote within each district earns that district’s electoral vote. Got all that? I didn’t think so.
Here’s how it might shake out in the real world. Kerry is pretty much a lock for the state’s popular vote. That nets him two electoral votes. He’s also pretty much a lock for the popular vote in Maine’s southern congressional district. One more vote. The popular vote in Maine’s northern congressional district though is up for grabs. What might swing the vote in the district for Bush is the state referendum on bear-baiting. For all of you elitist snobs out there who don’t know what this is, bear-baiting is the art of leaving bait, like...a fish I presume, inside a trap while the hunter hides in a tree and waits to ambush the unsuspecting bear. Right now, the referendum on the bear-baiting ban looks like it will fail, but in doing so it might also draw out teams of rednecks from the Northern Maine hinterlands. While they’re protecting their right to bear arms against bears, they might just vote against John Kerry cause the NRA sent them one of them postal letters saying that if John Kerry is elected he’s gonna pass a law making it illegal for me to shoot a bear in the back of the head and another law that says I have to mail my gun to Saddam Hussein so he can break out of prison. Or some shit like that.
Net result, 3 electoral votes for Kerry, one for Bush, as a result of a referendum on shooting bears.
Fuck these redneck states and their fucking backwards laws and backwards recreational activities. There, I said it. Now, in the spirit of all things Maine, here's some lobster jokes from Pete.
Why A Lobster Would Make A Better President Than George Bush
1. Has Claws
2. Doesn't Do It with Laura Bush
3. Is a veteran of the Great Lobster-Fisherman War of 1904
Makes sense to me.
Looks like Thomas Friedman has finally awoken from his coma, er.....returned from book-leave. Wish I could get some book-leave....anyway. Apparently, he just received the memo that's been going around.
To: Thomas Friedman, New York Times Columnist
From: The World
Re: Iraq is Fucked
Dear Tom:
Glad to see you back on the op-ed page, spouting forth banalities that you try to pass off as little pearls of Buddhist wisdom. While you've been gone, no doubt hunkered down in a cave somewhere working out you're next profound thesis: 'Freedom good, Terrorism Bad', Iraq continues to spin out of control. It was actually out of control well before your hiatus, but who would have known from reading your columns? Back then, one would have thought that democracy, and all its supposed blessings, was just around the corner for the greater Middle East. Turns out, Iraq looks like a giant Beirut circa 1983, except the food isn't as good.
I'll let Friedman explain the rest himself:
But here is the cold, hard truth: This war has been hugely mismanaged by this administration, in the face of clear advice to the contrary at every stage, and as a result the range of decent outcomes in Iraq has been narrowed and the tools we have to bring even those about are more limited than ever.
Oh, really? I wonder what could have led to that situation.
Because each time the Bush team had to choose between doing the right thing in the war on terrorism or siding with its political base and ideology, it chose its base and ideology. More troops or radically lower taxes? Lower taxes. Fire an evangelical Christian U.S. general who smears Islam in a speech while wearing the uniform of the U.S. Army or not fire him so as not to anger the Christian right? Don't fire him. Apologize to the U.N. for not finding the W.M.D., and then make the case for why our allies should still join us in Iraq to establish a decent government there? Don't apologize - for anything - because Karl Rove says the "base" won't like it. Impose a "Patriot Tax" of 50 cents a gallon on gasoline to help pay for the war, shrink the deficit and reduce the amount of oil we consume so we send less money to Saudi Arabia? Never. Just tell Americans to go on guzzling. Fire the secretary of defense for the abuses at Abu Ghraib, to show the world how seriously we take this outrage - or do nothing? Do nothing. Firing Mr. Rumsfeld might upset conservatives. Listen to the C.I.A.? Only when it can confirm your ideology. When it disagrees - impugn it or ignore it.
Oh, right. My question for Mr. Friedman though is this: What the hell made you think that this administration EVER acted in anyone's, or anything's, interest but its own? I know a lot of people, not just Tom, who kept expecting the White House crew to suck it up and make some tough choices (see above). It never happened. Here's the column's most telling sentence.
What I resent so much is that some of us actually put our personal politics aside in thinking about this war and about why it is so important to produce a different Iraq.
Translation: I never liked this bunch of assholes, but I wanted to see them succeed so badly I was willing to give them a pass on most other issues. I was deceived.
That's the way this crew operates, Tommy. I'm glad to see you're finally waking up. Friedman ruins what starts as a very decent and revealing column by throwing in some nonsense about how both candidates are trying to use Iraq for political advantage. You know, the platitudes of how Americans need "to immediately get the Democratic and Republican politics out of this policy" blah blah blah. Tom, this is not one of those throwaway issues where you can pull your usual, "Both sides are to blame" bullshit. "Democratic policy" did not get us into this war. I think it's time you admitted that and started assigning more blame sqaurely where blame is due. Or have you not received that memo yet?
Guess who's back....back again...Friedman's back....tell a friend....