When I see obvious holes in an opinion piece,
I become suspect of motive & agenda, regardless of
pedigree.
OK, I'll bite. Let's discuss the "holes" you pointed out in your original response, point by point.
Did it not occur to the writer that 9/11 changed everything?
This is not a hole, simply your gratuitious dismissal of the author and everyone else. Everyone knows that everything changed that day. Friedman didn't just fall off the turnip truck nor did Bush nor I nor anyone else.
"A cynic might say Bush was always interested only in stripping Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction."
It would also be deceitful as this was NOT the only reason
to remove Saddam.
The author is framing an argument--posing the position of a cynic. This anonymous cynic may also be deceitful, as you say. But this cynical and allegedly deceitful person is a prop in the article, not the voice of the author. Are you arguing that utilizing this argumentation device to illustrate a comparison is somehow a hole? Not. It's how you make a point. It's simply "one could look at it this way, but here's a different take."
"But with no such weapons having been unearthed thus far in Iraq, and with the costs of the war in lives and dollars soaring, he felt he needed a new rationale. And so he focused on the democratization argument."
Pure speculation, with no thought whatsoever given to what
I've already discussed.
Of course it's speculation. That's the point of the piece. The author is formulating and speculating on an alternative explanation for Bush's change of emphasis to counter the POV of the cynic.
""Indeed," he adds, "President Bush, who campaigned for the presidency as an ardent realist, scorning nation-building and idealism in foreign policy, is now quoting President Wilson and speaking about the need to make the Middle East safe for democracy. It shows how the burden of the office and the power of events can transform presidents." "
Again they have a point, but give no thought to how
EVERYTHING changed on 9/11. That's where Bush had to begin
changing his way of thinking about everything.
And that's the author's point, that Bush was anti nation building before 9-11 and has now come around to embracing it formally. I don't see how you can disagree with that or consider it a hole.
"If you listen to him speak about it, it seems heartfelt. But the fact is, Lincoln wrote the Gettysburg Address himself. Bush's democracy speeches were written for him. "
As I told Lindybill, Bush may have speech writers, but he
certainly has significant input into the content of those
speeches.
The author is suggesting that he has no way of knowing for sure how much of this speech represents the active initiative by the President and how much of it was presented to him and he bought into. None of us has any way of knowing. Surely he wouldn't make a speech he doesn't agree with, but whether the leadership for the change of emphasis came from him or not, none of us can know. The author is suggesting it may be premature to conclude a conversion on Bush's part and to look for confirmation in future messages before deciding how committed to this Bush really is. That's only common sense, seems to me. While 9/11 changed everything and is a plausible explanation for Bush's apparent embrace of nation building, only time will tell how strong Bush's conversion is. I don't see any "hole" in that, only being cautious and deliberate. If there's spin there, it's for the purpose of mollifying his intended audience, the cynics, by softening his criticism of their cynicism, allowing that they might still be right, let's wait and see.
So other than spin & distortion, what was their point?
Now, tell me again, where exactly is this alleged "spin and distortion?" |
