http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/08/22/ ... index.html
I try not to bitch about our Commander-In-Chief too often, but this is exactly the kind of thing that makes me want to sob about American politics right now.
What does a war-torn country (which we invaded) about to slide into the brink of gang-style civil war *really* need from us? A national PR tour, of course, replete with more public appearances from someone whose present popularity is probably literally underneath that of redolent molten sulfur.
First off all, the White House Press Corps has got to be just as nuts as Bush at this point for letting him go through with this. The man's public appearances have already had a near-fatal effect on the GOP in the last year, and yet they're giving him a free hand to go try to be a cheerleader for a cause that's getting up there with Vietnam in political analysis and popularity.
Second, it's not going to do a goddamn thing for Iraq, which probably needs about ten years of martial law (not another wasted troop surge) in order to avoid slipping into civil war and anarchy. Got to applaud an administration that has more or less taken a semi-functional nation and delivered it into the hands of the local street gangs. I get moderately irate these days at reports about clerics and extremist Islamism, because in the end this shit has relatively little to do with Islam, in my opinion - it's about thugs. It's about the local equivalents of the Crips and Bloods taking over. The fact that the local equivlalent of the Crips and Bloods tends to thug up around demagogue Islamist clerics doesn't make it any less of a petty turf war.
Interesting that this happens right after Rove bounces. I might be a novice political schemer, but shit, according to my best powers of manipulation, it's hard for me to see someone as astute P.R.-wise as Rove signing off on this. It'll be interesting to see how it turns out.
I try not to bitch about our Commander-In-Chief too often, but this is exactly the kind of thing that makes me want to sob about American politics right now.
What does a war-torn country (which we invaded) about to slide into the brink of gang-style civil war *really* need from us? A national PR tour, of course, replete with more public appearances from someone whose present popularity is probably literally underneath that of redolent molten sulfur.
First off all, the White House Press Corps has got to be just as nuts as Bush at this point for letting him go through with this. The man's public appearances have already had a near-fatal effect on the GOP in the last year, and yet they're giving him a free hand to go try to be a cheerleader for a cause that's getting up there with Vietnam in political analysis and popularity.
Second, it's not going to do a goddamn thing for Iraq, which probably needs about ten years of martial law (not another wasted troop surge) in order to avoid slipping into civil war and anarchy. Got to applaud an administration that has more or less taken a semi-functional nation and delivered it into the hands of the local street gangs. I get moderately irate these days at reports about clerics and extremist Islamism, because in the end this shit has relatively little to do with Islam, in my opinion - it's about thugs. It's about the local equivalents of the Crips and Bloods taking over. The fact that the local equivlalent of the Crips and Bloods tends to thug up around demagogue Islamist clerics doesn't make it any less of a petty turf war.
Interesting that this happens right after Rove bounces. I might be a novice political schemer, but shit, according to my best powers of manipulation, it's hard for me to see someone as astute P.R.-wise as Rove signing off on this. It'll be interesting to see how it turns out.
