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Politics : Don't Blame Me, I Voted For Kerry -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: longnshort who wrote (67038)	9/15/2005 12:18:29 PM
From: ChinuSFO	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 81568

I know about WBAL since I listen to that station when I am in the Baltimore area for business. I went to their web site and couldn't find anything relevant to what you posted. Besides, it is a liberal station and this is what I found there You Have to be an Idiot Not to be Afraid Tuesday, August 30, 2005 Ron Smith Someone said to me the other day, “You would have to be an idiot not to be frightened to death” by watching the news on television or reading about it elsewhere. Hard to argue with that, and I don’t. Here are just some of the recent events that make it clear Big Things are afoot: As Iraqi factions cannot come to agreement on the details of a constitution, civil war is already underway there, not only between the Kurds, the Shiites and the Sunnis, but between rival Shiite groups as well. Our military leaders admit they cannot “win” the war against the insurgents. And yet, George W. Bush says he’s “very optimistic” about Iraq. Is he disengaged from reality as many fear, or in possession of facts on the ground that nobody else knows about? The President, being hammered by falling poll numbers, is reported to be increasingly agitated, prone to furious outbursts directed at staffers, and in general acting very Nixon-like. And as public support for his war of choice evaporates, he speaks only to select, “safe” audiences (very LBJ-like) and tells them we must “stay the course,” and “win the fight.” They cheer. We wonder what course he’s talking about? What constitutes winning? Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, a primary architect of a war that now has cost the nation more money in inflation-adjusted terms than did the “War to End All Wars” back in 1917-18, says we won’t lose in Iraq, and tells an audience at the Army National Training Center that “a hasty withdrawal from Iraq is not a viable option.” He criticized the critics of the war, saying, “People who want to toss in the towel were wrong yesterday, they’re wrong today, and they’ll be wrong tomorrow.” The amazing thing is that Don Rumsfeld still has his job. What’s even more amazing is that nobody – NOBODY – among the people in official positions who ginned up this war on false pretences and who waged it with a force inadequate to the task of occupying Iraq has been held accountable for it. Paul Wolfowitz is handed the reigns to the World Bank. He’s the guy who said the war would pay for itself, presumably out of oil revenues. His protégé, Douglas Feith, did leave the Defense Department, but he wasn’t fired. He’s the guy General Tommy Franks memorably called “the stupidest F *** in the world.” John Bolton has been sent off to agitate the United Nations. The rest are pretty much still in place, including the reclusive Vice President Cheney. Anyway, nobody seems to know what we should do next in the failed occupation of Iraq. We have toppled the secular dictator, Saddam Hussein, and now are presiding over the establishment of a Shiite theocratic state, which isn’t exactly what we had in mind when this bloody thing began. To the conspiracy-minded, the big fear is that the only thing that might reverse the falling support for the president and his war is, well, another war. They predict an attack on Iran, the consequences of which could be catastrophic to the world economy. We cross our fingers and hope that doesn’t take place. Speaking of the economy, as Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan prepares for retirement, he causes shudders on Wall Street by warning of a coming bursting of the real estate bubble. Are residential real estate buyers on the cusp of a comeuppance? Maybe, but a Los Angeles Times story explores the new mortgage debt paradigm: that it’s not something to be avoided, but rather a tool much like a “seemingly magical ATM.” Ha, ha. I could go on, but space doesn’t permit it. wbal.com