What the Heck was I Thinking!?

I love his books, disagree with his overall politics, and am hugely impressed with Orson Scott Card’s post at The Ornery American:  Civilization Watch - October 29, 2006 - The Only Issue This Election Day.

I was set to disagree with Mr. Card, based on his opening paragraph about Republicans. The more I read his article, the more impressed with his thinking and world view.

Two things come to mind from reading the post: 1) People of principle can disagree on approaches to issues; and 2) Republicans must rise to the challenge of winning the War on Terror (or the War against Islamo-fascism). Otherwise, we forefeit the authority granted by the electorate, most especially including Democrats who think as Mr. Card.

Our challenge to the Republican leaders who remain after the election, and from now on, must be, "Don’t screw it up!" 

I came upon the Vanity Fair article by David Rose,Neo Culpa: Politics & Power: vanityfair.com from The Corner on National Review Online in which David Rubin calls Vanity Fair on their lack of integrity (original hat tip from Dr. Sanity).

Rubin is upset because he, and apparently others were promised that the article wouldn’t come out before the election. Evidently, Vanity Fair doesn’t care what they said, they want to have their team win.

Reading the article by Rose, though, showed just how badly they’ve twisted the headline and subtitle:

Neo Culpa - As Iraq slips further into chaos, the war’s neoconservative boosters have turned sharply on the Bush administration, charging that their grand designs have been undermined by White House incompetence. In a series of exclusive interviews, Richard Perle, Kenneth Adelman, David Frum, and others play the blame game with shocking frankness. Target No. 1: the president himself.

This sounds as though all of the interviewees were saying that they blame President Bush for the failures.

The first victim of this torture is Richard Perle. He does state that as head of the executive branch, he takes the blame. However, he adds another telling comment, one that reminds me of all the classified releases, internal criticisms, etc. that have plagued the White House, the CIA, the State Department, and even the Department of Defense: 

 

According to Perle, who left the Defense Policy Board in 2004, this unfolding catastrophe has a central cause: devastating dysfunction within the administration of President George W. Bush. Perle says, "The decisions did not get made that should have been. They didn’t get made in a timely fashion, and the differences were argued out endlessly.… At the end of the day, you have to hold the president responsible.… I don’t think he realized the extent of the opposition within his own administration, and the disloyalty."

"The extent of the opposition and the disloyalty." Makes you think of Armitage and Powell, among the others who’ve been found out. Imagine in a bureaucracy the size of the Executive Branch how many are in positions to undermind and sabotage the President’s strategies and policies.

 

What’s so amazing is how much has been done, and done very well, in spite of the constant ’stick-in-the-spokes’ behavior of faceless (and not so faceless) bureaucrats. 

I was reading an entry in BLACKFIVE about the coming election. One paragraph popped out at me

 

Absolutely, the news reported from Baghdad is grim. It’s akin to my hometown of Chicago 80 years ago when the Irish and the Italian mobs fought it out in the streets. Both factions were Catholic. Both factions had control of certain areas of Chicago. Both had prominent politicians and religious leaders in their pockets…or maybe it was vice versa. There are smaller elements that point to civil war in Iraq, but, in my mind, the majority of the violence in Iraq is due to two waring mobster factions - Mahdi and Badr.

This got me to thinking about articles and posts about the death rate in Iraq compared to US cities and states.

 

Kind of makes you think about the reporting and political statements a little differently, doesn’t it.

Curt at Flopping Aces posts about "The Grey Lady Discovers Saddam Had Nuclear Aspirations." It’s a good exposition of the trap the Left have set for themselves - either Saddam was no threat and we went there for no "good" reason, or he was a real threat and we went there to protect our selves and other free people from terrorism. You can’t have it both ways as Curt points out.