Leonard Pitts: "Honestly, How Can Anyone Still Believe In President Bush?"

[Hissyspit]

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bal-op.pitts14jan14,0,4367008.story?coll=bal-oped-headlines

Honestly, how can anyone still believe in President Bush?
By Leonard Pitts Jr.
Originally published January 14, 2007

- snip -

The decision to increase troop strength is remarkable coming, as it does, from a president who has consistently defended existing troop levels as adequate to get the job done. But then, he's also a president who has consistently said he could not think of any mistakes he made in prosecuting the so-called war on terror.

- snip -

From the beginning, the architects of this war have shown a frightening nonchalance toward truth, a troubling willingness to treat fact as optional. Where reality has collided with political expedience, political expedience has invariably won. Where it has been inconvenient, it has simply been ignored.

It happened when the administration linked Iraq to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks even though one had nothing to do with the other. It happened when the White House used discredited intelligence to make the case for war. It happened when the president airily dismissed gloomy intelligence reports that did not jibe with his preferred view. It happened when he kept insisting we "stay the course" even after it became apparent to everyone with eyes that the course led straight off a cliff.

So now here comes Mr. Bush with sober mien and chastened air, asking for one more chance to get it right. And if you sense in this corner a reluctance to comply, well, it has less to do with the merits of his proposed strategy than with the fact that it is his proposed strategy. Mr. Bush is a man who has heretofore shown only arrogance in the face of monumental and fatal misjudgments. Now he comes before the country asking us, in effect, to trust him.

And for the life of me, I can't think of a single reason I should.

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[malaise]

1. Isn't it amazing

how columnists now read like archived DU posts.

[Philosoraptor]

2. Varying shades of bad.

Great read.

[freefall]

3. Human beings have always had an incredible capacity for self delusion.

Years ago I saw a PBS special on Stalin. One of the interviewees was a prisoner in the gulag when Stalin died. She said there were political prisoners sent to the gulag by Stalin who cried when they heard the news of his death. They still believed in "Uncle Joe" despite their personal experience of his evil. Whenever I find myself amazed at the ability of others to follow evil into the abyss I remind myself of that tidbit of information. It has helped me understand many situations including the one in which we now find ourselves. Understanding does not mean acceptance however, we must rid ourselves of our scourge and destroy his gulags before he builds too many more.

Peace,

freefall

[ananda]

7. Maybe it's the Stockholm Syndrome..

.. or something like the abused spouse staying in a violent relationship
with other family members trying to excuse or mitigate the actions and
motivation of the abusive parent.

Sometimes the only solution is to end the relationship and get out.

Impeach and convict Bush!

[ClintonTyree]

4. But where were these very same columnists.....

WHILE Bush was making these bone-headed decisions and ignoring facts that didn't support his policy? (crickets chirping) They can rail all they want against Bush now, and don't get me wrong, I'm glad they're finally speaking out, but their silence at the time makes them accomplices to Bush's ham-handed blunders. Are they going to plead ignorance or stupidity? Either one is alarming from the puppy-dog press that stood behind the Chump in Chief as he methodically mired our country in his hopeless war of choice.

They can rail all they want at Bush but they themselves share the blame for the quagmire in Iraq.

[GreenZoneLT]

5. Thanks, Leonard, you nailed it

Unlike a lot of DUers, I don't think the president is actually a chimpanzee, nor is he the pawn of an ee-vil cabal working to force everyone in the world to work as slaves in their subterranean petroleum mines. He's not even an Al Qaeda mole. I think he's a pretty standard Texas politician who is reeellly, reeeeelllly bad at being President of the United States, and even worse at being Commander in Chief and Leader of the Free World.

I'd like him to succeed in Iraq to the extent that is still possible (at this point, success probably means handing over to the Iraqis the equivalent of Belfast, Northern Ireland, circa 1970, which beats Mogadishu or Beirut). But he's such an inveterate fuckup that I almost can't see any way he CAN succeed, given that every decision the Decider makes nearly always winds up being the wrong one. I'm having to hope for the best on the outside chance that Gen. Petraeus can pull this one off on his own.

Here's another warm 'n' fuzzy thought: Our Bonehead in Chief's new master plan requires a competent performance not only from himself, but from Nouri al Maliki and the Iraqi security apparatus. Talk about a weak freakin' reed.

Oh, btw, this surge is pretty much a troop increase in name only. The force level has dropped gradually from a peak last fall, and this is intended to push it back up to 154,000 by May, mostly through a combination of holding over some forces and sending others early. That's below the troop level in November 2005. So if there's anything new in what's about to happen, it's not U.S. troop levels.

Oh, well. It really doesn't matter that much what we do; the Iraqis are the ones making the real decisions, and maybe this is just Bush's way of demonstrating how hard he tried, and how he shouldn't be blamed for the Iraqis not coming through.

[C_U_L8R]

9. That's our Bush

an "inveterate fuckup" indeed !!

[riderinthestorm]

10. You need to read Octafish's posts on the Bush family and their cohorts.

Bush is way more than just a fucked up good ole boy from Texas....

[Martin Eden]

6. That's pretty much what I wrote in my LTTE ...

... that will be published in the Chicago Tribune on Wednesday:


INSANE PRESIDENT

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Adter nearly four years of failed military solutions in Iraq, the president's "new" strategy is to increase our military presence by 15%. I don't know who is more insane -- George W. Bush or anyone still willing to believe and follow him.

[spanone]

8. I don't know ANYONE who supports bush*. ANYONE.

[B Calm]

11. It's not just Bush. How about the whole republican party?