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New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd is frequently annoying when she does her too-clever pairings of the foibles of world figures ("Saddam was found hiding in a hole; Bush has one in his head..." WHATEVER). She's better when she just does straight criticism of an Administration that is demonstrably screwed up beyond all recognition. Like today:
Even if his suave statesmanship were not so perfectly suited to high-level diplomacy, [John] Bolton should still get the [UN] job. A ruthless ogre who tried to fire intelligence analysts who disagreed with his attempts to stretch the truth on foreign weapons programs deserves to be rewarded as other Bush officials have been.Our fellow Americans, who so trustingly voted this Administration back in six months ago, are wising up, it seems. According to a recent Gallup poll, 50% of us now admit Bush actively lied about Iraq WMD. Whether we give a crap is another issue, but that's an encouraging statistic. Obviously the number would be much higher if Wolf Blitzer, et al, hadn't also lied. They knew all that WMD talk was a crock--any smart person did--but they just wanted to see things blow up good on their teevee programs.
After all, he was in sync with the approach of Condi Rice, Paul Wolfowitz, Stephen Hadley and Bob Joseph - who were all up for big jobs after they torqued up intelligence to fit the White House's theological beliefs.
Condi breezed into the secretary of state job, even after she helped Dick Cheney gin up the Iraq war, ignoring reports debunking the notion of Iraqi nuclear tubes, and even after she told Congress she'd shrugged at the Aug. 6, 2001, presidential daily brief headlined "Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States."
Mr. Wolfowitz was eager to sell the war, ignoring predictions of insurgency and possible civil war. So he and Donald Rumsfeld left our troops so stretched and vulnerable that they were reduced to using cardboard cutouts to stand sentry, and to jury-rigging Humvees that had not been properly armored, resulting in many lost limbs and lives.
So Mr. Wolfowitz now has the prestigious job of World Bank president.
George Tenet presided over the two biggest intelligence failures in modern history. He slam-dunked a Medal of Freedom out of them.