(This article also has a pretty cool cartoon of * with his pants with Iraq written on them around his knees)
by Sydney H. Schanberg
February 18 - 24, 2004
President Bush's war in Iraq, oddly, has begun to remind me of the floating craps game in Guys and Dolls. In the classic musical, the "guys" have to keep moving the venue from one hiding place to another—to avoid getting caught playing an illegal gambling game. The president, with much bigger stakes, keeps moving his rationale for the war (as he rolls the dice)—to avoid getting caught playing with the truth.
His problem is that he has been caught.
All the recent revelations about the recklessness of his war policy, the delusory nature of his economic plan, the heretofore masked role of Vice President Dick Cheney as the unaccountable power directing the throne, have revealed Bush as he is—a limited man missing many qualifications for the job. This pulling back of the curtain, all at once, has made clear that while George W. Bush may be a religiously sincere man who actually believes he's trying to do good, he is, in the same incarnation, a make-believe president who has made a mess of almost everything and put the country at risk in many ways, including the risk of economic disorder.
In some of his latest appearances, the revealed Bush, in word and demeanor, has appeared wan and defensive, even hunched—and yet he does not come clean. He cannot seem to take the final step and apologize to a nation that has already lost more than 500 sons and daughters to his Iraq war; each week, another nine or 10 fall. Apologies, ever rare in public life, are even rarer in election years.
More ...
http://villagevoice.com/issues/0407/schanberg.php