Activism Works

Barf!

President Bush was so non-Presidential today in his response to John Kerry's speech on Iraq. Re Iraq, Bush glibly stated, "I saw the intelligence, Senator Kerry saw the intelligence, the U.N. saw the intelligence." Yes, but the intelligence was wrong. Whose fault is that? Is it possible Bush is so illiterate that he never heard the famous Truman line, "the buck stops here." Bush speaks as if he bears no responsibility for the American intelligence services, which were beaten badly on 9/11, and apparently are no better two years later.

Let's put it this way, if you used a calculator to do your taxes, then later found out that calculator was busted when the IRS slammed you for income tax evasion, wouldn't you fix the fucking calculator before doing your taxes again?
But am I being unfair? Is Bush to blame for the frighteningly poor performance by our intelligence service? As a matter of principle, the Commander in Chief should accept responsibility for the failure.

How about as a matter of fact? Does the extreme ideological bent of the Bush administration contribute to faulty intelligence. And is Bush creating a culture within his administration that might lead to better intelligence-gathering? To the contrary, it appears our entire national security team is stoned out of their mind from the smell of bullshit. Have you ever smelled bullshit? I used to work on a farm, it's pretty heady stuff. I can't imagine what it's like to inhale the smell of bullshit 24/7, but I can imagine it might impair one's job performance. Especially if your job is to cut through the bullshit and get to the truth.

President Bush stays on talking point: "If John Kerry were president, Saddam Hussein would still be in power." Bush may not remember his own statements, but I do. Before the war began, Bush stated that Saddam could avoid the war if he disarmed. All he had to do was turn over the WMDs. (In my experience, it's hard to turn over something you don't have. Though perhaps this isn't true for the President. After all, he gave us a reason to go to war in Iraq when he didn't actually have one.) I'm not an expert on Bush-style logic, but I think that statement means Bush would not have invaded Iraq if he had known Saddam had no weapons.

Wait a minute, let's parse that little Bush-ism. "If John Kerry were president, our intelligence services would not be distorted by an ideological agenda, we would have had accurate intelligence, we would have known Saddam didn't have WMDs, we would have continued the effective containment regime rather than blunder into war, and yes, Saddam would still be in power but contained. If the Iraqis want to get rid of him, they could fight against Saddam as hard as they are now fighting against us."

Help! George W. Bush is starting to make sense to me.

posted by 10-K @ 9:29 PM (permalink)