Saturday, March 11, 2006

Disappointment of the Week

You don't have to click -- the Times headline tells all: "Advisers Say Discontent Hasn't Discouraged Bush."

Of course it hasn't. Why should it? Losing the 2000 election didn't discourage him. His own witless failure to read the PDB warnings about bin Laden didn't discourage him. Letting bin Laden escape at Tora Bora didn't discourage him. When Daddy's point man Unca Brent warned him that Iraq would be a bad move, it didn't discourage him. Forcing Colin Powell to lie to the UN about WMDs didn't discourage him. The Downing Street Memo that proves he knew about the lies doesn't discourage him. The steady stream of former staff members who either say outright (Richard Clarke, Anthony Zinni) or imply by their silence (Powell) that he combines a frightening zeal for war with a stunning lack of aptitude for fighting it hasn't discouraged him. Squandering the surplus and creating a gazillion-dollar deficit that will be paid off by our great-grandchildren doesn't discourage him. The evident need to keep changing rationales for a pre-emptive war that defies both international law and the traditions of the faith he so vocally espouses didn't discourage him. Having his torturers and secret prisons revealed to the world didn't discourage him. Having his administration called "Worse Than Watergate" by one of the Watergate conspirators (!) didn't discourage him.

The man is positively undiscourageable.

Not to mention shameless. Not to mention unimpeachable, no matter how much Garrison Keillor and I might wish it otherwise.


Or, to put it another way: He doesn't care about the facts. He doesn't care about the will of the voters. He doesn't care about the good of the Republic, now or in the years to come. Why on earth should anybody expect him to care about a few rebellious voices in a party so ferociously disciplined that it will easily silence them before they can actually do any good?

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