April 11, 2007
We’ve known he’s lame, but who knew it could be an advantage?
Oh, the rancor Our Fine President and his flacks continue to drum up over those pesky Democrats in the Congress who wont send him a “clean” check to fund the Iraq war the way he wants it run. Every day they turn on the petulance and trot out some new degree of outrage over Congress’ delay in getting that war funding done just right.
Today it was whining that Democratic leaders don’t want to sit down with him so he can explain why he wants what he wants one more time. Our Fine President has previously elaborated on his fondness for repeating things so many times they almost seem real. The terms he wanted for a sit-down can be summed up as “I talk, you listen.”
The Democrats and the public that voted them back into control of Congress have already heard the whole spiel about how failure is not an option, and there’s a corner a’turning just ahead, and if we leave they’ll stow away and follow us home, and we can only fail if we quit, so let’s not fail. People simply aren’t buying those lines anymore, and unless Our Fine President is willing to listen to other points of view and negotiate with his political opponents who represent a majority of the people who live in his country, there’s not much point in letting him give that same speech one more time.
Of course, after today he might have to drop a line or two from the script. He’d been threatening one of the consequences for not getting money to the troops right quick would be lengthened tours of duty in the warzone. Now it seems those longer tours weren’t going to be needed due to funding cuts, but instead they’re needed now and have nothing to do with the budget. Gee, another instance of Our Fine President knowing one thing and saying another to sell his plan, that does seem to be high on his list of hobbies.
Unfortunately, there’s an even more depressing side of this whole mess. Just as Congress could just sit on their hands and send him no funding bill at all for his emergency request to pay for his war, with his unwavering follow-through on decisions, Our Fine President might just be able to wait them out and prosecute his misguided war while stretching our military ever thinner in a martial pursuit of a settling a conflict that’s been too long denied diplomatic attention.
That’s a game of political chicken I hope we don’t have to see. Congress is slowly awakening from hibernation and growing more bold with each timid step toward serving its purpose, but Our Fine President has been cranky and obstinate when faced with a lapdog Congress, so who knows how deep he might dig his heels in when someone really faces off with him. It’s not that he’s a tough guy, he’s just spoiled into stubbornness and with his flimsy grip on reality and the truth, who knows how far he’s willing to push things in his attempt to vindicate his name in the history books.
But there is always the crazy notion that his miserable failure in Iraq might just turn out to achieve his goal after all. Not that his goal for this effort is really any of the stated reasons.
We all know now that this war was not waged because Saddam Hussein was a gathering threat. The evidence shows the administration knew most of the damning intelligence was bunk even as they incessantly talked it up. The war was certainly not fought to go after terrorists, as again, the record clearly shows Iraq had no ties to al Qaida and the UN inspections and no-fly zones were keeping the country in check. Bringing the hope of democracy to a troubled region is just as clearly not the reason we in, since Our Fine President eschewed nation-building before Iraq and his political tactics are antithetical to the spirit of those democratic freedoms he loves to go on about.
No, this war was waged to try to prove a theory that would cement the U.S.A.’s place as the dominant world power in the world. The only reason that makes any sense to me is that their misguided notion of knocking out the weak guy and scaring the rest of the upstart wannabe world powers into behaving seemed like a great plan to them. They really seem to have believed it would be just that simple. You go in, knock out Saddam and walk back out embiggened in the eyes of the world as the Iraqi people come together and live out the Jed Clampett dream life on the proceeds from their Black Gold and Texas Tea.
We all know that plan was always quixotic and unachievable, but they tried it out and now we’re stuck with a chaotic, broken Iraq and they wont give up the reigns. It’s obvious that we’ve lost standing in the eyes of the world and certainly don’t look so tough in front of the upstart powers, but this fiasco in Iraq might just do the trick of keeping people off our backs.
Sure we don’t look so effective at remaking the world in our image, but we sure look effective at knocking it all to pieces. Our Fine President has certainly ruined our country’s reputation as the biggest kid on the playground, but if he keeps compiling the madness caused by his Iraq folly he might just be able to get this country to assume the roll of the crazy kid on that playground.
No one messes with the biggest toughest kids, but that violently destructive crazy kid usually gets left alone as well. Sure you can do him some harm, but there’s good chance that if you do, he’ll do some memorable damage as well. If Our Fine President is as stubborn as he seems likely to be in his two years of being a lame duck, we might just get that crazy kid rep.