Thursday, February 12, 2004
Molly and the Memory Hole
The world of TeamBush is one that relies a good bit on "Up-is-downism." A deforestation scheme long championed by the timber industry is titled "Healthy Forests" and a pollution bill that actually increases toxic chemicals pumped into our air is known by the moniker "Healthy Skies Initiative."
Molly Ivins once again wades into this tangle of half-truths and outright lies by reminding us that not everyone was wrong about Iraq's weapons capabilities in the months leading up to war. In fact, those of us not possessed by Orwellian tendencies may recall that after the largest world-wide demonstrations about one topic in the history of mankind last February 15, one foreign news outlet noted, "(t)here are two superpowers on the planet: the United States and World Opinion."
I'll admit--I would have felt pretty stupid if huge stockpiles of weapons turned up, along with sophisticated delivery systems at-the-ready capable of firing them around the world at a moment's notice. I would have felt even worse if documents or persons linking Iraq and Al Qaeda turned up--more so if we could have shown how Saddam planned to give those madmen bio-weapons and nukes to use against western civilian targets. That's what they taunted us with. "Wait and see and then you'll be sorry" was the TeamBush pre-war mantra.
In short, they would have been absolutely right. I would have owed Bush, Cheney, Perle and Wolfowitz a big apology. I may have even reassessed my own geopolitical perspective.
Don't they at least owe me the same? They were wrong. They put all of their eggs in one basket and, not inconsequently, have put our nation in its most precarious position in a generation.
Clinton was wrong and looked foolish with his cheap attempts to define what "is, is" regarding his contact with a White House intern. The right-wing press grilled him on that, as did alot of other people. But in the end he was playing word games about a tawdry series of quickies and his own personal marital infidelity. And he even apologized for that on national TV, as I recall.
Bush is betting the election that his refusal to admit any serious mistakes or missteps will play to the American people as resolve and determination. His quickly eroding poll numbers suggest that may not be the case. Josh Marshall put it this way when talking about Bush's Meet the Press mano-a-mano with Tim Russert:
"The issue, I think, is that right now the president doesn't have a particularly good story to tell or a particularly good explanation for why almost nothing he's said would happen (budget, Iraq, etc.) has happened. That's a problem.
So when he goes on an hour-long interview he doesn't sound very good. And since he's not willing to confront the debacle of the weapons search, the fiscal mess, or what's happening on the ground in Iraq he comes off sounding evasive, incoherent and out of touch with what's happening on his watch."
Indeed.
The world of TeamBush is one that relies a good bit on "Up-is-downism." A deforestation scheme long championed by the timber industry is titled "Healthy Forests" and a pollution bill that actually increases toxic chemicals pumped into our air is known by the moniker "Healthy Skies Initiative."
Molly Ivins once again wades into this tangle of half-truths and outright lies by reminding us that not everyone was wrong about Iraq's weapons capabilities in the months leading up to war. In fact, those of us not possessed by Orwellian tendencies may recall that after the largest world-wide demonstrations about one topic in the history of mankind last February 15, one foreign news outlet noted, "(t)here are two superpowers on the planet: the United States and World Opinion."
I'll admit--I would have felt pretty stupid if huge stockpiles of weapons turned up, along with sophisticated delivery systems at-the-ready capable of firing them around the world at a moment's notice. I would have felt even worse if documents or persons linking Iraq and Al Qaeda turned up--more so if we could have shown how Saddam planned to give those madmen bio-weapons and nukes to use against western civilian targets. That's what they taunted us with. "Wait and see and then you'll be sorry" was the TeamBush pre-war mantra.
In short, they would have been absolutely right. I would have owed Bush, Cheney, Perle and Wolfowitz a big apology. I may have even reassessed my own geopolitical perspective.
Don't they at least owe me the same? They were wrong. They put all of their eggs in one basket and, not inconsequently, have put our nation in its most precarious position in a generation.
Clinton was wrong and looked foolish with his cheap attempts to define what "is, is" regarding his contact with a White House intern. The right-wing press grilled him on that, as did alot of other people. But in the end he was playing word games about a tawdry series of quickies and his own personal marital infidelity. And he even apologized for that on national TV, as I recall.
Bush is betting the election that his refusal to admit any serious mistakes or missteps will play to the American people as resolve and determination. His quickly eroding poll numbers suggest that may not be the case. Josh Marshall put it this way when talking about Bush's Meet the Press mano-a-mano with Tim Russert:
"The issue, I think, is that right now the president doesn't have a particularly good story to tell or a particularly good explanation for why almost nothing he's said would happen (budget, Iraq, etc.) has happened. That's a problem.
So when he goes on an hour-long interview he doesn't sound very good. And since he's not willing to confront the debacle of the weapons search, the fiscal mess, or what's happening on the ground in Iraq he comes off sounding evasive, incoherent and out of touch with what's happening on his watch."
Indeed.
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