| DaveSZ |
| quote: | Originally posted by Echo of Silence
6 months to go Dave. 6 months is a long time.
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Trust me dear, I feel it in my bones. :D
The rats in the press have been jumping ship:
(I actually have a-lot of respect for Tucker Carlson even though I almost never agree with him)
http://www.observer.com/pages/nytv.asp
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But it seems Mr. Carlson has had a change of heart recently. While he’s still a staunch conservative—he’s anti-abortion, married with four kids—he’s changed his mind about the war in Iraq.
"I think it’s a total nightmare and disaster, and I’m ashamed that I went against my own instincts in supporting it," he said. "It’s something I’ll never do again. Never. I got convinced by a friend of mine who’s smarter than I am, and I shouldn’t have done that. No. I want things to work out, but I’m enraged by it, actually."
Mr. Carlson—never really a card-carrying member of the vast right-wing conspiracy—said he had broken off from the hawkish neoconservatives who flogged the war from the get-go. "I’m getting more paleo every day," he said, referring to the so-called paleoconservatives.
Mr. Carlson was beginning to sound a bit like former Nixon speechwriter and Crossfire alum Pat Buchanan, another righty who has been an opponent of the war. In the past, said Mr. Carlson, he had made some unfair attacks against Mr. Buchanan, and he was feeling guilty about that, too.
"Buchanan is a perfect example of somebody who’s been name-called into oblivion," he said. "And I did some of that. I definitely called Pat a lot of names. And I feel bad about that. I think he deserved some of those names. On the other hand, calling people names is a way of ignoring what they’re saying. It’s actually an outrage, and I actually feel really bad about my role in that."
What kind of names?
"I wrote two different pieces calling him an anti-Semite," said Mr. Carlson. "And while he may be an anti-Semite, I would say, in Buchanan’s case, not all his ideas are crazy."
Mr. Carlson said he called Mr. Buchanan last year and apologized to him personally. "He was completely confused, I think," he recalled.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/13/o.../13FRIE.html?hp
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Dancing Alone
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Published: May 13, 2004
It is time to ask this question: Do we have any chance of succeeding at regime change in Iraq without regime change here at home?
"Hey, Friedman, why are you bringing politics into this all of a sudden? You're the guy who always said that producing a decent outcome in Iraq was of such overriding importance to the country that it had to be kept above politics."
Yes, that's true. I still believe that. My mistake was thinking that the Bush team believed it, too. I thought the administration would have to do the right things in Iraq — from prewar planning and putting in enough troops to dismissing the secretary of defense for incompetence — because surely this was the most important thing for the president and the country. But I was wrong. There is something even more important to the Bush crowd than getting Iraq right, and that's getting re-elected and staying loyal to the conservative base to do so. It has always been more important for the Bush folks to defeat liberals at home than Baathists abroad. That's why they spent more time studying U.S. polls than Iraqi history. That is why, I'll bet, Karl Rove has had more sway over this war than Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Bill Burns. Mr. Burns knew only what would play in the Middle East. Mr. Rove knew what would play in the Middle West.
I admit, I'm a little slow. Because I tried to think about something as deadly serious as Iraq, and the post- 9/11 world, in a nonpartisan fashion — as Joe Biden, John McCain and Dick Lugar did — I assumed the Bush officials were doing the same. I was wrong. They were always so slow to change course because confronting their mistakes didn't just involve confronting reality, but their own politics.
Why, in the face of rampant looting in the war's aftermath, which dug us into such a deep and costly hole, wouldn't Mr. Rumsfeld put more troops into Iraq? Politics. First of all, Rummy wanted to crush once and for all the Powell doctrine, which says you fight a war like this only with overwhelming force. I know this is hard to believe, but the Pentagon crew hated Colin Powell, and wanted to see him humiliated 10 times more than Saddam. Second, Rummy wanted to prove to all those U.S. generals whose Army he was intent on downsizing that a small, mobile, high-tech force was all you needed today to take over a country. Third, the White House always knew this was a war of choice — its choice — so it made sure that average Americans never had to pay any price or bear any burden. Thus, it couldn't call up too many reservists, let alone have a draft. Yes, there was a contradiction between the Bush war on taxes and the Bush war on terrorism. But it was resolved: the Bush team decided to lower taxes rather than raise troop levels.
Why, in the face of the Abu Ghraib travesty, wouldn't the administration make some uniquely American gesture? Because these folks have no clue how to export hope. They would never think of saying, "Let's close this prison immediately and reopen it in a month as the Abu Ghraib Technical College for Computer Training — with all the equipment donated by Dell, H.P. and Microsoft." Why didn't the administration ever use 9/11 as a spur to launch a Manhattan project for energy independence and conservation, so we could break out of our addiction to crude oil, slowly disengage from this region and speak truth to fundamentalist regimes, such as Saudi Arabia? (Addicts never tell the truth to their pushers.) Because that might have required a gas tax or a confrontation with the administration's oil moneymen. Why did the administration always — rightly — bash Yasir Arafat, but never lift a finger or utter a word to stop Ariel Sharon's massive building of illegal settlements in the West Bank? Because while that might have earned America credibility in the Middle East, it might have cost the Bush campaign Jewish votes in Florida.
And, of course, why did the president praise Mr. Rumsfeld rather than fire him? Because Karl Rove says to hold the conservative base, you must always appear to be strong, decisive and loyal. It is more important that the president appear to be true to his team than that America appear to be true to its principles. (Here's the new Rummy Defense: "I am accountable. But the little guys were responsible. I was just giving orders.")
Add it all up, and you see how we got so off track in Iraq, why we are dancing alone in the world — and why our president, who has a strong moral vision, has no moral influence.
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