[Home]  [Headlines]  [Latest Articles]  [Latest Comments]  [Post]  [Sign-in]  [Mail]  [Setup]  [Help] 

Status: Not Logged In; Sign In

Texas Flood

Why America Built A Forest From Canada To Texas

Tucker Carlson Interviews President of Iran Mosoud Pezeshkian

PROOF Netanyahu Wants US To Fight His Wars

RAPID CRUSTAL MOVEMENT DETECTED- Are the Unusual Earthquakes TRIGGER for MORE (in Japan and Italy) ?

Google Bets Big On Nuclear Fusion

Iran sets a world record by deporting 300,000 illegal refugees in 14 days

Brazilian Women Soccer Players (in Bikinis) Incredible Skills

Watch: Mexico City Protest Against American Ex-Pat 'Invasion' Turns Viole

Kazakhstan Just BETRAYED Russia - Takes gunpowder out of Putin’s Hands

Why CNN & Fareed Zakaria are Wrong About Iran and Trump

Something Is Going Deeply WRONG In Russia

329 Rivers in China Exceed Flood Warnings, With 75,000 Dams in Critical Condition

Command Of Russian Army 'Undermined' After 16 Of Putin's Generals Killed At War, UK Says

Rickards: Superintelligence Will Never Arrive

Which Countries Invest In The US The Most?

The History of Barbecue

‘Pathetic’: Joe Biden tells another ‘tall tale’ during rare public appearance

Lawsuit Reveals CDC Has ZERO Evidence Proving Vaccines Don't Cause Autism

Trumps DOJ Reportedly Quietly Looking Into Criminal Charges Against Election Officials

Volcanic Risk and Phreatic (Groundwater) eruptions at Campi Flegrei in Italy

Russia Upgrades AGS-17 Automatic Grenade Launcher!

They told us the chickenpox vaccine was no big deal—just a routine jab to “protect” kids from a mild childhood illness

Pentagon creates new military border zone in Arizona

For over 200 years neurological damage from vaccines has been noted and documented

The killing of cardiologist in Gaza must be Indonesia's wake-up call

Marandi: Israel Prepares Proxies for Next War with Iran?

"Hitler Survived WW2 And I Brought Proof" Norman Ohler STUNS Joe Rogan

CIA Finally Admits a Pyschological Warfare Agent from the Agency “Came into Contact” with Lee Harvey Oswald before JFK’s Assassination

CNN Stunned As Majority Of Americans Back Trump's Mass Deportation Plan


Editorial
See other Editorial Articles

Title: Has He Started Talking to the Walls? [Is out of touch Bush insane or just incompetent?]
Source: Frank Rich
URL Source: http://welcome-to-pottersville.blog ... has-he-started-talking-to.html
Published: Dec 5, 2006
Author: Frank Rich
Post Date: 2006-12-05 01:07:22 by Morgana le Fay
Keywords: None
Views: 143
Comments: 7

It turns out we’ve been reading the wrong Bob Woodward book to understand what’s going on with President Bush. The text we should be consulting instead is “The Final Days,” the Woodward-Bernstein account of Richard Nixon talking to the portraits on the White House walls while Watergate demolished his presidency. As Mr. Bush has ricocheted from Vietnam to Latvia to Jordan in recent weeks, we’ve witnessed the troubling behavior of a president who isn’t merely in a state of denial but is completely untethered from reality. It’s not that he can’t handle the truth about Iraq. He doesn’t know what the truth is.

The most startling example was his insistence that Al Qaeda is primarily responsible for the country’s spiraling violence. Only a week before Mr. Bush said this, the American military spokesman on the scene, Maj. Gen. William Caldwell, called Al Qaeda “extremely disorganized” in Iraq, adding that “I would question at this point how effective they are at all at the state level.” Military intelligence estimates that Al Qaeda makes up only 2 percent to 3 percent of the enemy forces in Iraq, according to Jim Miklaszewski of NBC News. The bottom line: America has a commander in chief who can’t even identify some 97 percent to 98 percent of the combatants in a war that has gone on longer than our involvement in World War II.

But that’s not the half of it. Mr. Bush relentlessly refers to Iraq’s “unity government” though it is not unified and can only nominally govern. (In Henry Kissinger’s accurate recent formulation, Iraq is not even a nation “in the historic sense.”) After that pseudo-government’s prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki, brushed him off in Amman, the president nonetheless declared him “the right guy for Iraq” the morning after. This came only a day after The Times’s revelation of a secret memo by Mr. Bush’s national security adviser, Stephen Hadley, judging Mr. Maliki either “ignorant of what is going on” in his own country or disingenuous or insufficiently capable of running a government. Not that it matters what Mr. Hadley writes when his boss is impervious to facts.

In truth the president is so out of it he wasn’t even meeting with the right guy. No one doubts that the most powerful political leader in Iraq is the anti-American, pro-Hezbollah cleric Moktada al-Sadr, without whom Mr. Maliki would be on the scrap heap next to his short-lived predecessors, Ayad Allawi and Ibrahim al-Jaafari. Mr. Sadr’s militia is far more powerful than the official Iraqi army that we’ve been helping to “stand up” at hideous cost all these years. If we’re not going to take him out, as John McCain proposed this month, we might as well deal with him directly rather than with Mr. Maliki, his puppet. But our president shows few signs of recognizing Mr. Sadr’s existence.

In his classic study, “The Great War and Modern Memory,” Paul Fussell wrote of how World War I shattered and remade literature, for only a new language of irony could convey the trauma and waste. Under the auspices of Mr. Bush, the Iraq war is having a comparable, if different, linguistic impact: the more he loses his hold on reality, the more language is severed from its meaning altogether.

When the president persists in talking about staying until “the mission is complete” even though there is no definable military mission, let alone one that can be completed, he is indulging in pure absurdity. The same goes for his talk of “victory,” another concept robbed of any definition when the prime minister we are trying to prop up is allied with Mr. Sadr, a man who wants Americans dead and has many scalps to prove it. The newest hollowed-out Bush word to mask the endgame in Iraq is “phase,” as if the increasing violence were as transitional as the growing pains of a surly teenager. “Phase” is meant to drown out all the unsettling debate about two words the president doesn’t want to hear, “civil war.”

When news organizations, politicians and bloggers had their own civil war about the proper usage of that designation last week, it was highly instructive — but about America, not Iraq. The intensity of the squabble showed the corrosive effect the president’s subversion of language has had on our larger culture. Iraq arguably passed beyond civil war months ago into what might more accurately be termed ethnic cleansing or chaos. That we were fighting over “civil war” at this late date was a reminder that wittingly or not, we have all taken to following Mr. Bush’s lead in retreating from English as we once knew it.

It’s been a familiar pattern for the news media, politicians and the public alike in the Bush era. It took us far too long to acknowledge that the “abuses” at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere might be more accurately called torture. And that the “manipulation” of prewar intelligence might be more accurately called lying. Next up is “pullback,” the Iraq Study Group’s reported euphemism to stave off the word “retreat” (if not retreat itself).

In the case of “civil war,” it fell to a morning television anchor, Matt Lauer, to officially bless the term before the “Today” show moved on to such regular fare as an update on the Olsen twins. That juxtaposition of Iraq and post-pubescent eroticism was only too accurate a gauge of how much the word “war” itself has been drained of its meaning in America after years of waging a war that required no shared sacrifice. Whatever you want to label what’s happening in Iraq, it has never impeded our freedom to dote on the Olsen twins.

I have not been one to buy into the arguments that Mr. Bush is stupid or is the sum of his “Bushisms” or is, as feverish Internet speculation periodically has it, secretly drinking again. I still don’t. But I have believed he is a cynic — that he could always distinguish between truth and fiction even as he and Karl Rove sold us their fictions. That’s why, when the president said that “absolutely, we’re winning” in Iraq before the midterms, I just figured it was more of the same: another expedient lie to further his partisan political ends.

But that election has come and gone, and Mr. Bush is more isolated from the real world than ever. That’s scary. Neither he nor his party has anything to gain politically by pretending that Iraq is not in crisis. Yet Mr. Bush clings to his delusions with a near-rage — watch him seethe in his press conference with Mr. Maliki — that can’t be explained away by sheer stubbornness or misguided principles or a pat psychological theory. Whatever the reason, he is slipping into the same zone as Woodrow Wilson did when refusing to face the rejection of the League of Nations, as a sleepless L.B.J. did when micromanaging bombing missions in Vietnam, as Ronald Reagan did when checking out during Iran-Contra. You can understand why Jim Webb, the Virginia senator-elect with a son in Iraq, was tempted to slug the president at a White House reception for newly elected members of Congress. Mr. Bush asked “How’s your boy?” But when Mr. Webb replied, “I’d like to get them out of Iraq,” the president refused to so much as acknowledge the subject. Maybe a timely slug would have woken him up.

Or at least sounded an alarm. Some two years ago, I wrote that Iraq was Vietnam on speed, a quagmire for the MTV generation. Those jump cuts are accelerating now. The illusion that America can control events on the ground is just that: an illusion. As the list of theoretical silver bullets for Iraq grows longer (and more theoretical) by the day — special envoy, embedded military advisers, partition, outreach to Iran and Syria, Holbrooke, international conference, NATO — urgent decisions have to be made by a chief executive who is in touch with reality (or such is the minimal job description). Otherwise the events in Iraq will make the Decider’s decisions for him, as indeed they are doing already.

The joke, history may note, is that even as Mr. Bush deludes himself that he is bringing “democracy” to Iraq, he is flouting democracy at home. American voters could not have delivered a clearer mandate on the war than they did on Nov. 7, but apparently elections don’t register at the White House unless the voters dip their fingers in purple ink. Mr. Bush seems to think that the only decision he had to make was replacing Donald Rumsfeld and the mission of changing course would be accomplished.

Tell that to the Americans in Anbar Province. Back in August the chief of intelligence for the Marines filed a secret report — uncovered by Thomas Ricks of The Washington Post — concluding that American troops “are no longer capable of militarily defeating the insurgency in al-Anbar.” That finding was confirmed in an intelligence update last month. Yet American troops are still being tossed into that maw, and at least 90 have been killed there since Labor Day, including five marines, ages 19 to 24, around Thanksgiving.

Civil war? Sectarian violence? A phase? This much is certain: The dead in Iraq don’t give a damn what we call it.

Post Comment   Private Reply   Ignore Thread  


TopPage UpFull ThreadPage DownBottom/Latest

#1. To: Morgana le Fay (#0)

Is out of touch Bush insane or just incompetent?

BOTH.

Max  posted on  2006-12-05   3:10:47 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#2. To: Max, Morgana le Fay (#1)

Is out of touch Bush insane or just incompetent?

One must question the whole system that allowed this executive branch to persue an invasion of choice. Democrats and Pubbies, not to mention the MSM that, largely, cheerleaded. Krauthammer et al does come to mind. Now he has the gall to lecture us on the ungrateful Iraqis.

tom007  posted on  2006-12-05   7:07:54 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#3. To: Morgana le Fay (#0)

....mission is complete...

The neo crazies almost are there. Total civil war, Chaos spilling into other countries. Plan is rolling along.

Bush is just a puppet taking orders.

Mark

The FBI, rather than trying to prevent a terrorist attack, was merely gathering intelligence so they would know who to arrest when a terrorist attack occurred.— Robert Wright - Former FBI agent

"At temperatures above 800º C structural steel loses 90 percent of its strength. Yet even when steel structures are heated to those temperatures, they never disintegrate into piles of rubble, as did the Twin Towers and Building 7."-http://www.911research.net

Kamala  posted on  2006-12-05   7:36:26 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#4. To: tom007 (#2)

One must question the whole system that allowed this executive branch to persue an invasion of choice. Democrats and Pubbies, not to mention the MSM that, largely, cheerleaded. Krauthammer et al does come to mind. Now he has the gall to lecture us on the ungrateful Iraqis.

Well, most of the American people cheerleaded this invasion of choice at the time, too. Kicking the shit out of Iraq was supposed to be our vicarious revenge for 9-11. The blame for this percolates all the way down through all of the filters to us. Ourselves. We the People are to blame for the invasion.

the law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, beg in the streets and steal bread.

bluedogtxn  posted on  2006-12-05   9:36:08 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#5. To: bluedogtxn, all (#4) (Edited)

Well, most of the American people cheerleaded this invasion of choice at the time, too. Kicking the shit out of Iraq was supposed to be our vicarious revenge for 9-11. The blame for this percolates all the way down through all of the filters to us. Ourselves. We the People are to blame for the invasion.

I refuse to take that blame! LOL. I was against it from the start for all the reasons we now know are true. So were a lot of others.
The main blame rests on the 2 party FRaud system of PoliticoWhores who do NOT represent the best interests of AmEriKa, but rather, the best interests of Israel, their re-election campaigns [Big Corporations and ETHNIC GROUPS..i.e. wanting amnesty], and their back pockets.

Again I will say that The Tree of Liberty does not need water. It needs to be torn out by the roots and a new tree planted altogether...somewhere else. Or else partition the country or secede. See why below.

Entire laws need to be repealed and the structure rebuilt. But with the NWO plan already in progress of cultural division and disintegration, it can never come to pass in the AmeriKa of the present. Impossible. We have become a Bosnia...an Iraq if you will...where a positive outcome is now 100% impossible.

The only option that remains is the revenge [JUSTICE] option against the traitors who brought us here, which of course, will have no effect whatsoever on the runaway train we're on. Like nuking Russia after we've been destroyed...what good would it do? The Tree of Liberty is dead. The United States are no more.

Law Enforcement Against Prohibition




Just as there is no money in peace or freedom, there is also no money in a healthy Amerika - - IndieTX

IndieTX  posted on  2006-12-05   11:05:40 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#6. To: bluedogtxn (#4)

We the People were deceived about the facts.

Katrina was America's Chernobyl.

aristeides  posted on  2006-12-05   11:19:14 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#7. To: aristeides (#6)

We the People were deceived about the facts.

This is true.

the law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, beg in the streets and steal bread.

bluedogtxn  posted on  2006-12-06   9:26:57 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


TopPage UpFull ThreadPage DownBottom/Latest


[Home]  [Headlines]  [Latest Articles]  [Latest Comments]  [Post]  [Sign-in]  [Mail]  [Setup]  [Help]