Karl Rove's Diary: Escaping the Lame Duck Trap
democraticunderground.com
<<... IRAQ WAR IMPLOSIONS ARE DANGEROUS
Now we get to a possible real vulnerable point. The goddamn war in Iraq. Not the war per se, as the fact that the traitorous media is revealing all sorts of things that were not meant for public exposure. Like how the Army has found that the Koran was indeed abused badly at Gitmo, urinated on, stepped on, defaced and so on; now we look ridiculous for making Newsweek stand in the corner and apologize for saying pretty much the same thing we're admitting. (Lucky for us Newsweek did a Rather and got a sourcing fact wrong.)
Sure, we want our interrogators at Gitmo and elsewhere to "break" those prisoners, by whatever means are required, but why can't the goddamn military keep their troops disciplined, by which I mean silent? Now the word's out and we're catching hell all over the globe. Thank God, there aren't any photos or videos of such behavior!
Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch and the Red Cross and so on are all making a big stink about how we've turned into the Soviets and Nazis by mistreating, abusing, torturing and humiliating prisoners - even hiding some of them, "ghosting" them, from the designated international observers.
I wish we could come right out and just say it: "Yes, we have done all that, in our own little gulags; what are you going to do about it? These are killers and we need to keep them off the streets by whatever means necessary, including killing the worst ones if we have to, and disrespecting their holy book in order to make them know who's boss."
Instead, we have to deny all and feign outrage, denouncing the messenger, as usual, without confronting the message head-on. Oh well, such is politics in a politically-correct age.
But Rumsfeld and Cheney are almost worse than Dim Bulb; in recent days, each has made a terrible Freudian slip in calling the Gitmo detainees "prisoners of war," a big mistake since our whole policy for their not falling under Geneva Convention protections is that they are not POWs but "enemy combatants." Get back in line, fellas.
DOWNING STREET "SMOKING GUN" MEMO
The bad news is that the torture/Koran issue is melding with the revelations in the Downing Street Memo - that both Blair and Bush were engaged in a conspiracy to fool our respective citizens into believing that we in the Administration were truly interested in a diplomatic solution when the decision to attack Iraq actually had been made nearly a year before the invasion.
And when you add to that "smoking gun" the growth and sophistication of the insurgent forces in Iraq, and the increasing threat of ethnic civil strife erupting in that country, the Iraq War and our handling of it could build to critical mass in the public mind. The might even be willing to consider that maybe the U.S. should bug out of there stat. Can't have that now, can we?
RETURN OF THE "I" WORD
Given that liberal journalists are constantly bringing up the Administration's so-called sins of commission and omission, it's not surprising that the "I" word is starting to be bandied about again, as it was when Abu Ghraib broke. I don't think we need worry ourselves about impeachment during this second term - our GOP friends will hang tight in the Congress, even if they despise us; they know on which side their political bread is buttered, and will do nothing to harm their own holds on power and influence.
But there is a growing rumble out there, and not just from disgruntled and angry Democrats, that we in the Administration have grown too big for our britches and are taking the country way too far to the right - and "incompetently" at that - and need to be reined in. We sure did get our asses whupped by bowing to the fundamentalists in the Schiavo fiasco; and the House and Senate both passed funding bills for highway projects and stem-cell research despite the threat of a presidential veto - not good signs.)
Most importantly, the Dems are chomping at the bit to initiate impeachment hearings, especially over Iraq and how we got there, but, unless the public suddenly gets stirred up to take action against us in a big way - not bloody likely, as they're willing to let us do anything as long as we keep them safe - I think we can weather the storm.
Hell, our role-model here should be Tom DeLay; the liberals have nearly got the noose around his neck and can't wait for the lynching to start, but The Hammer keeps pounding, and confounding, his critics. Hang in there, Tom! (Whoops, bad choice of words.)
But what about after 2008? Unless Jeb or another leader we can count on is elected, we still might have to worry about facing criminal, civil and international war-crimes charges associated with our eight years of rule. Can't let that happen.
Gotta talk to Poppy and Jeb - and Wally over at Diebold...>> |
