At least I hope that's what it is. As pretty much everyone is pointing out, there's the National Intelligence Estimate which says that Iraq has set the US back on the "War on Terror", there are the "revelations" in Woodward's new book, and finally, there's the Foley scandal dragging down Speaker Hastert and associated other Republican House leadership. On one hand, all this couldn't happen to more deserving people, but, on the other, I'm dismayed that it's the Foley scandal which is really threatening to turn the House and maybe the Senate to Democrats in the midterm elections in a month. Okay, sure, Foley's behavior and the Republican leadership's covering it up is reprehensible, and I agree that it perfectly highlights how the "party of values" really only cares about power and money and not actually principles and governing. However, what about the real disasters of the Bush admin: invasion of Iraq, loss of New Orleans, Abrahamof / DeLay money laundering, gutting environmental and labor law, regressive tax policy and enforcement, Medicare "reform", inaction on global warming, creating and then doing everything it can to lose the "Global War on Terror"... really the list could go on for pages (no pun intended) -- basically caring about nothing except funneling money to people who are already very wealthy and who will recycle some of that money into the Republican Party coffers. Really, while I'm glad that the Foley scandal dramatizes these character qualities for the public at large, is this really what it takes???
The biggest mystery to me, still, is what took people so long. Why wasn't it evident from day one (or before, as it was to Paul Krugman) that telling the truth is the exception for the Bush admin? Or, if the political class and journalists knew, why didn't they care about the obvious ideological blindness and incompetency of this crew?
My thoughts often return to a former co-worker with whom I carpooled for a while. I tried to tell him before the invasion of Iraq that there were no "Weapons of Mass Destruction" (in quotes because this rubric includes chem and bio weapons as well as nuclear, for no reason that I can understand) in Iraq (thanks, Scott Ritter), that there was no Iraq / Al Qaeda connection (thanks, Czech head of intel and other sources), that the Aluminum tubes were for missiles and not centrifuges (thanks, Oak Ridge National Lab), etc. I tried to tell him I. F. Stone's (not that I know much about him) saying that "All you really have to understand is two words: 'Governments lie.'." I was so obnoxious that he left the carpool, but to no avail. He'd keep saying things like "I think they believe they're doing what's best for the country." And this is someone who self-identified as liberal, who read the Washington Post and the Economist (maybe, you say, that's the problem). I keep wondering what he thinks now, four years later, when all this and more is now conventional wisdom (except for approximately a third of the country!). Does he wish he'd paid more attention to the news, or does he dismiss as coincidence the things I told him then? Does he even remember what I, admittedly rather incoherently, tried to tell him at the time, or does he still go around with his head in the sand, doing nothing and hoping for the best?
Anyway, I hope the Democrats can do something useful when they're back in power, but, judging how they've handled things the last six years, I'm not that optimistic about them, either. I guess I have to take the uncertain success of Democrats over the certain failures of Republicans. I am heartened, though, by things like this.
No comments:
Post a Comment