Sunday, July 22, 2007

Failure at the top

The people in charge of our country have failed. They don't seem to have a firm grasp of reality - or truth. How striking it is that the bright spot is the sight of our Secretary of Defense in tears.

Did you see the clip of Defense Secretary Gates chocking up as he spoke movingly of the loss of life and limb in Iraq? It was a relief to see a top official acknowledge the awful cost of this war. The arrogant Rummy was dismissive. The obtuse W. seems incapable of understanding how inappropriate his sunny spirits are. And the callous Cheney’s robo-aggression continues unabated. At least Gates gets it.

Gates and Secretary of State Rice have teamed up to try to bring reality into our policies. (One White House official was quoted as saying, "We create our own reality". That is a diagnosable mental illness.)

We don't hear much about "victory" in Iraq anymore and we never hear the phrase, "cut and run". Now we hear about competing exit strategies. Bush clings to his Iraq fantasy as the sons and daughters of the nation loose life and limb. Almost everyone else realizes we have lost. The Iraq Parliament is about to go on a month long vacation (which was originally a 2 month vacation, until the Bush administration talked them out of it). The only reason for the surge in troops is to buy time for a political solution. Even if our military is completely, 100% successful; the political solution it would provide breathing space for is nowhere in sight.

Bush's political advisor, Karl Rove, is expert at spin and manipulation. He knows how to tell part of the truth to mislead the listener. He is clever at conflating unlike or even contradictory elements into a false statement that sound good. He is a master of the reasonable sounding non sequitur.

It is a disgrace that all Rove's cleverness is being used by Bush to trick and mislead America.

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