Monk

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Days before the 2006 election, Robert Draper reports in his fascinating new book, as things were looking bleaker and bleaker for House Republicans, and even the party’s chairman was predicting a G.O.P. defeat, George W. Bush brushed aside such forecasts, telling one of his worried aides that they were all being pessimists. When she protested that she was simply being realistic, he said: “Realist — I like that,” but added, “There’s a fine line between realism and pessimism.”

-- Machiko Kakautani for The New York Times

I used to try to give Dubya some benefit of the doubt about his intelligence, and although the guy is not really dumb, I have finally accepted that he is a simpleton. Still, I do like this line. Though, I'm afraid that Dubya demonstrates that there is also a fine line between optimism and delusion.

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George Will has such a romantic streak, and will show it at the oddest times, as in his recounting of the Alberto Gonzales resignation:

Alberto Gonzales could not even leave high office without advertising his unfitness for it. As he habitually has done, he reminded the nation that he has "lived the American Dream," which he evidently thinks is epitomized by his success in attaching himself to a politician not known for demanding quality in assistants. Gonzales then demonstrated how uncomprehending he is of essential American values. He said: "Even my worst days as attorney general have been better than my father's best days."

Well. His father married and had eight children—nine wonderful days, days even better, one would have thought, than any of the days his son spent floundering at the Justice Department. Furthermore, Gonzales's father had the fulfillment of a lifetime spent providing for his family. But what is any of that, Gonzales implies, compared with the satisfaction of occupying, however unsatisfactorily, a high office? This implicit disparagement of his father's life of responsibility and self-sufficiency turns conservatism inside out. It is going to take conservatism a while to recuperate from becoming associated with such people.

Even conservatives are looking forward to putting the Bush days behind them.


(Source: George F. Will for Newsweek)

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I feel like letting Krugman take another highbrow dump on the Bush Administration. They deserve it. We have really learned the meaning of "compassionate conservatism" over the years. It is a genteel way of saying, "Fuck off and die elsewhere!"

( Krugman )

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I suppose I should mention that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales resigned today. Democrats and liberals are pretty happy about this. It would seem a big step forward for justice, reason, and democracy. But all indications are Bush is just going to pick another crony-stooge. So, it doesn't really matter. The problem, of course, is Bush, and we have another year and a half of it.

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What the Bush administration has created in Iraq is a sort of paradise of perverted capitalism, where revenues are forcibly extracted from the customer by the state, and obscene profits are handed out not by the market but by an unaccountable government bureauc­racy. This is the triumphant culmination of two centuries of flawed white-people thinking, a preposterous mix of authoritarian socialism and laissez-faire profit­eering, with all the worst aspects of both ideologies rolled up into one pointless, supremely idiotic military adventure -- American men and women dying by the thousands, so that Karl Marx and Adam Smith can blow each other in a Middle Eastern glory hole.

... According to the most reliable ­estimates, we have doled out more than $500 billion for the war, as well as $44 billion for the Iraqi reconstruction effort. And what did America's contractors give us for that money? They built big steaming shit piles, set brand-new trucks on fire, drove back and forth across the desert for no reason at all and dumped bags of nails in ditches. For the most part, nobody at home cared, because war on some level is always a waste. But what happened in Iraq went beyond inefficiency, beyond fraud even. This was about the business of government being corrupted by the profit motive to such an extraordinary degree that now we all have to wonder how we will ever be able to depend on the state to do its job in the future. If catastrophic failure is worth billions, where's the incentive to deliver success? There's no profit in patriotism, no cost-plus angle on common decency. Sixty years after America liberated Europe, those are just words, and words don't pay the bills.

-- "The Great Iraq Swindle" at RollingStone.com

One hears bits and pieces of the corruption going on in Iraq over goverment contracts, but this article puts it all togethre in one molotov cocktail of criticism and indignation. I think the writer hurts his case by suggesting that the main purpose behind the Iraq war is the profiteering of private businesses, and one does sense a certain ideological axe to grind.

Still, if the anecdotes and claims he puts together are not bullshit, if you are not a hopeless cynic, this report can make you one. What really grabs you is the case that the Bush Administration is so complicit in the corruption, going out of its way to protect the bad guys. To think that this sort of abetted, callous thievery is what underlies the war effort, and that we are losing this war, it just leaves you shaking your head. It is too absurd, even evil.

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"You've betrayed Vietnam. Someday you're going to sell out Taiwan. And we're going to be around when you get tired of Israel."

-- Syrian Dictator

Mark Steyn is doing the quoting, in a piece supporting President Bush's use of the Vietnam War as an analogy for his case to stay the course, in the face of the controversy that the Vietnam analogy is more fitting for the left and why we need to withdraw from Iraq.

Losing in Iraq certainly isn't going to help America's cause, but not even having a real strategy to win isn't better. We don't seem to be able to do what it takes to win, so it is hardly insensible to cut our losses.

It is a nightmare.

It is so bad a nightmare that, if Iraq does fall into chaos and becomes effectively a platform and staging ground for anti-Western hostilities, we may have to go back sometime, maybe within ten years, and it is likely to be costlier and harder, but we might not have any choice.


(Source: Mark Steyn for The O.C. Register)

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WASHINGTON, Aug. 13 — Karl Rove, the political adviser who masterminded President George W. Bush’s two winning presidential campaigns, is resigning, the White House confirmed today.

In an interview published this morning in The Wall Street Journal, Mr. Rove said, “I just think it’s time,” adding, “There’s always something that can keep you here, and as much as I’d like to be here, I’ve got to do this for the sake of my family.”

-- Jim Rutenberg for The New York Times

Usually, when you hear of political figures needing to spend more time with their families, there is some kind of scandal or legal charge in the background, and I was wondering what happended? What scandal has blown up? But it looks like he really is just stepping down.

What will Bush do without his brain? Does this mean more power to Cheney?

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WASHINGTON — Frequent tours for U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan have stressed the all-volunteer force and made it worth considering a return to a military draft, President Bush's new war adviser said Friday.

"I think it makes sense to certainly consider it," Army Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute said in an interview with National Public Radio's "All Things Considered."

"And I can tell you, this has always been an option on the table. But ultimately, this is a policy matter between meeting the demands for the nation's security by one means or another," Lute added in his first interview since he was confirmed by the Senate in June.

-- The Huffington Post

This report also makes it clear that President Bush remains adamant against the draft, and that General Lute understands this.

How would Americans react to a new draft after so many years without one?

Is it possible to remain on this kind of war footing without one, especially when Iran and Pakistans are seen as potential new targets on top of Iraq and Afghanistan?

Or would the political pressures of a draft be so fierce that it would ultimately hasten a retreat into isolationism?

Considering Bush's unpopularity, he may be the only one who could pull it off, or at least get a draft started and going. If he indeed refrains from the draft, I cannot imagine the next Administration, whether Democratic or Republican, taking that political risk.

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This is a powerful clip on the Iraq war that is perhaps making the LJ rounds. It plays like a real tragedy and is like a sharp punch to the guts.

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Frank Rich takes up the O'Hanlon and Pollack op-ed along with his poison-barbed treatment of all those pundits who he believes only disingenuously aver that they support the troops in what is really a desperate bid to support this Republican Bush Administration in the face of a political free-fall.

As usual, Rich is a bit one-sided, but, again, he is more of an opinion-maker than a neutral analyst. I like his strong account for my record.

I would only note that those who continue to beat the drums for an effort that would seem to have no chance at any meaningful success are not necessarily crassly poltical and partisan. For it is true that defeat in Iraq will be a terrible blow for the country, such that it could be worth almost anything to try to win, even to try to manipulate public opinion to maintain support for a long war, which is always difficult in a generally peace-loving democracy.

But you have to win. And it is not enough to be America. You have to win.

Arguably, though, the problem was choosing this war and going in only half-cocked. I, myself, thought it was a bold stroke that could be a decisive move in the larger War on Terror. But this Administration apparently went in with no conception about what it would take to secure the country, and they certainly had warnings about the consequences of breaking the country and then having to own it.

And their mess is our tragedy.

( Rich )

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