Ridiculous

My days of defending Don Rumsfeld for his candidness have come to a screeching halt:

"Any kind of moral and intellectual confusion about who and what is right or wrong can severely weaken the ability of free societies to persevere."

In other words, democracies exist when you all nod your heads and do what your leaders tell you to do.

I'm beyond thinking any of the decision-makers in the Bush White House are liars necessarily. At this point I just think they're delusional, which is clearly worse. If they were just lying one could hope they're doing some things right, while trying to cover up all the bad things. But if they're delusional, well, then they don't even realize how badly they're fucking things up, and they keep on the same path. That's where I think things are at.

Why are they delusional? They truly believe they can remake things, and change the future of the world. The problem is they made enormous mistakes along the way, and now have to deal with the consequences of their actions. This is very difficult to take for people who believe they themselves are never wrong. It's the biggest part of this problem: They don't believe they make mistakes, but if they did, they start to believe something else.

In this case, the something else is the bigger picture of "global terrorism." Even though mistakes have been made, which they reluctantly acknowledge (hence why you know it's true), they can fix the bigger issue, so they think. Which begs the question, "Why should we trust you to fix it when you're the ones who broke it in the first place?" Okay, so they didn't create 9/11...at least not directly, but more so than Democrats I could argue. But we're talking about the current problem, which has nothing to do with 9/11. Well, at least it didn't when this started. They've now made it part of 9/11 having invited Al Qaeda to Iraq, etc. But I'm talking just Iraq, Iran, and the shit storm that has ensued: not 9/11 (I feel dirty even mentioning 9/11 because somehow that could lend credence to the idiots who attach the two).

The reason people like Rumsfeld, Cheney, Feith, and others can't come to terms with this is because of the opportunity that's presented. The President always says, "We have an opportunity..." He must hear that often.

Even though things are disastrous, if they were to fix the problems then they would get all of the credit for overcoming the greatest issue of this generation. That's an opportunity they cannot pass up! Yes, they messed up, but they see a chance to be great. Pulling out would end what they started, and in essence that would end their dream of being credited for having done great things. Therefore, they want us to stay! They dream at night of a democracy in the Middle East, formed by themselves. It seemed like a possibility 5 years ago, and who knows, it may have been, but that's gone, and they cannot accept this. They just want us to stay because they still have the same dreams...which gets us back to the delusions.

All they want is the credit. Even if pulling out resulted in something better, they would not get the credit. That's the problem. It's more a political battle here at home, and for the future, then it is anything else. Troops can die, Iraqis can die, it doesn't matter. They want the dream to be reality under their watch. Even if a Democrat came into office right now, and agreed to stay in Iraq for as long as it takes, they'd support the Democracy because it would be themselves who started the conflict, and Bush who would get the credit.

I am 100% certain they want the credit more than anything. I know this because of the way conservatives treated President Clinton. When he was winding down his days in office he was constantly engaged in the Israel/Arab conflct. He spent all of his hours trying to flesh out a compromise. Inevitably it failed, but like Carter before him, he was working tirelessly to find a solution. Conservatives would claim he was "trying to remake his legacy..." What? Are you kidding? That's what he was doing? Wrong. Only a selfish piece of shit would view the world like that, and of course, now they're in control. Knowing they believed that of Clinton then I can only believe they act like that on their own.

Again, why would anyone think the people who caused this problem can fix it? They've proven time and time again their incompetence. Even if it's a different set of Republicans, fine, but these people have brought everyone nothing short of disaster.

Rumsfeld also said this:

"President Bush remains the same man who stood atop the rubble of Lower Manhattan, with a bullhorn, vowing to fight back."

He sure does.

All That for Nothing!

I'm sure many are upset that at the end of all the Plame bullshit Richard Armitage is the one holding the bag. Afterall, he's not one of the White House's inner-circle people, and he's not a lying hack like the rest of them.

Okay, so it was Richard Armitage, who admitted to doing so years ago, and it's a White House that has denied knowing who it was. The President would happily fire anyone caught having done it because afterall, it was Richard Armitage! The neo-cons never cared for him. He was expendable.

It's not so much that they did, or didn't expose Valerie Plame as a CIA Agent, it's the fact that so many people believe they actually would if it would help their cause. So many people distrust this White House on such a high level that it was natural to assume that they did expose Plame, and did jeopardize her. It's sad we are made to feel that it could be true because of all the lying they've done in the past. If someone had accused the Carter Administration of this no one would have believed it. But the lying Bush team, well, it's quite believable!

Now lets not let the recently famed Joe Wilson and Wife confuse us to what the real issue was with regard to this story. Not that someone exposed his wife, but that the President lied in a speech to the nation, and made Americans think war was justified. He did this by claiming Saddam Hussein had received uranium from Niger, and that this was something we needed to worry about here in America. Using the imagery from 9/11, and taking the fact Saddam had used WMDs, Bush tried to make the case he would use WMDs against us. Everyone was so fearful of an attack they were willing to believe it. But not all WMDs are the same. Just because Saddam used chemical or biological weapons thousands of miles away from America did not mean he could use a nuclear weapons against America. But that never deterred Bush, who was more than willing to use the fear of a nuclear weapon to push his own agenda. This is what was lost in the Valerie Plame bullshit.

I sure as hell hope Democrats start making this argument if this topic becomes and issue at all on the talking heads shows. Whether Wilson was right, or wrong, isn't relevant with regard to who exposed his wife. He was right about one thing: The President lied to Americans about Saddam's acquisition of nuclear weapons, and he used this issue to scare us into a war we're not soon getting out of.

Because Bush was willing to do that, well, it was quite believable that someone over there was willing to expose Wilson's wife. If we trusted them in the first place we'd never have cared about this accusation at all.

THAT'S THE ISSUE.