Lileks is on today.
<font color=blue>I ask my Democrat friends what they’d rather see happen – Bush reelected and bin Laden caught, or Bush defeated and bin Laden still in the wind. They’re all honest: they’d rather see Bush defeated.
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........If I sound as though I’m hammering small things as if they were nine-part series in the WaPo, I suppose that’s because I am doing exactly that. Sometimes I react to the small things with excess zeal because the large things have, over the course of a weekend, driven me daft. Stark raving bezoomy, as Alex would say, my droogs.
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Sometimes the disconnect between the editorial page and the real world is so vast I wonder whether we can ever agree about anything any more. I mean, I’m reading “The Connnection” by Stephen Hayes, the book that spells out all the information and intel about Saddam and Al-Qaeda. I’m old enough to remember when this was conventional wisdom. Why, I even remember back to the end of 2001, when the general mood seemed to favor bold action to forestall future catastrophe. If we hadn’t deposed Saddam, and Bush had won a second term, and there had been a terrorist attack in 05, this book would be the Democrat’s brief for impeachment. BUSH KNEW and did nothing.
And it’s not going to get better. I don’t think the next attack will bring us together like 9/11. Last time a small portion of the nation went straight to blaming us for enflaming poor Mo Atta and his motley crew; the last three years have seen that poison spread and flourish, and blaming America for the ravings of medieval theocrats is now a legitimate argument in polite society. I’d almost venture to say that a third of the country would conclude that a radiological device exploded in Manhattan would be Bush’s fault, because he made the “evil doers” (roll eyes) super-extra-fancy-grade-AA mad.
For the last few weeks I’ve had this gnawing belief that bin Laden got lucky by attacking during Bush’s term. Conventional wisdom says the opposite, because Bush fought back. But he’s the enemy now. I ask my Democrat friends what they’d rather see happen – Bush reelected and bin Laden caught, or Bush defeated and bin Laden still in the wind. They’re all honest: they’d rather see Bush defeated. (They’re quick to insist that they’d want Kerry to get bin Laden ASAP. Although the details are sketchy.) Of course this doesn't mean they're unpatriotic, etc., obligatory disclaimers, et cetera. But let's be honest. People are coming up with websites that demonstrate ingenious technology for spraying anti-Bush slogans on the sidewalks; it would be nice if they sprayed "DEFEAT TERRORISM" or "STOP AL QAEDA" now and then. Wouldn't it?
Is that too much to ask?
Perhaps this is why I haven’t written much about the subject lately with the usual chest-thumping brio:
I think it’s going to have to get much worse before we get
clarity. Most days I just don’t know what to say anymore.
There are fiends out there chopping off the heads of
Americans for their god, and we have cartoonists who think
it’s the height of insight to show the Neocon cabal as port-
swilling fat men bothered by baggy pants on insolent teens.
I understand the desire to whistle when passing the
graveyard; it’s human nature. I don’t understand climbing
down into the hole, crossing your arms on your chest,
feeling the first few warm clumps of dirt on your face, and
puckering your lips for the first few bars of “Happy Days
Are Here Again.”
Or "Le Marseillaise."
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