THE GOLDEN CADILLAC

LOST IN THE SAND AND IN THE WIND of George Bush’s bluster one finds some harsh truths about the war in Iraq.  Once again a retrofitted National Intelligence Estimate is cited, an estimate completed to make “facts” fit conclusions, an Estimate which in its public form deleted any doubts within the intelligence to give Democrats pause in the quest for war.  Down in the polls, the Bush administration once again ramps up the rhetoric and the tone of its sales job.  We should ignore the Iraqi used car in front of us with its three flat tires and steaming blown out radiator with the hood up and Bush steaming.  Bush lost in the sand would tell us the car is the shining Golden Cadillac of United States success if only these latter day dissenters wouldn’t point out the bumper falling off that was making sparks as the junker slowed and started rolling backward down the hill.

BUSH HAS LOST the war of opinion on the war, at home and abroad.  For all the latter day hand wringing and post modern McCarthyism about “dissenters” giving comfort to the enemy as we lose CHINA VIETNAM Iraq, how little one hears these days about the Coalition of the SHILLING Willing.  The cakewalk promenade, the rose petalled arrival in Baghdad, the Rose Bowl parade of cars seems a few Poles and Italian and British cars short of Bush’s brigade of the braggart.  This war was sold as shock and awe, a feat to be accomplished in short order.  The polls reveal discontent with the lying salesman.  The Poles and the Italians, even the poodle Tony Blair’s Brits have pulled out of Bush’s parade up the hill to his heaven.

BUSH IS SHORT tempered with those who see only the shock of the awful, the awful truth that leaders in war press forward.  We are not impressed.  Bush now stands before us on his head after having been dropped that way by the golden cadillac of policy on Iraq that rolled over two or three times at least to find a reason that the Americans would buy.  Weapons of Mass Destruction, the world is safer without the madman dictator BUSH Saddam, freedom is on the march.

NOBODY IS BUYING Bush forgot about Poland and Italy and Britain too, when he slammed into critics of the war with his retreaded rhetoric yesterday. All of the formerly willing are now willing far less. Bush’s will is resolute.  We “know where he stands.”  He stands alongside a wrecked junk of a cars, huckstering hell as heaven, with his hand out looking like a boy anxious for a high five.  High times are over, low polls numbers tell a truth he cannot tell himself.  His golden Cadillac is totaled, but he thinks he can sell it again.

RECOMMENDED ADDITIONAL READING
LOST IN THE HEADLIGHTS [WaPo] Bristling from fresh assaults on its justification for war, the White House dispatched national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley to the briefing room to issue a rebuttal to "the notion that somehow the administration manipulated prewar intelligence about Iraq." The administration's judgment on the threat posed by Iraq, he said, "represented the collective view of the intelligence community" and was "shared by Republicans and Democrats alike."
THE HERETIK SEES THE CHERRY picked “intelligence” picked off one by one by Jane Hamsher. There is a Firedog in the fight.

RIGHTEOUS UNTIL THE END [Tigerhawk] President Bush's speech this afternoon — a response to the unfortunately persistent idea that the Bush administration lied or mislead the Senators who voted to support regime change in Iraq — has re-ignited the argument about patriotism . . .
When a democratic nation is at war, there are inevitably those who will object to the way in which the war is being fought, or that it is being fought at all. If the war is manifestly for the country’s survival or otherwise of great moment, the objectors will be so marginalized that they and their arguments will have no effect on the politics of the country, the morale of its military, or the tactics of the enemy.
Dissent can, however, have an enormous impact on the means by which a democracy wages a limited war, the persistence with which it wages the war, or whether it wages the war at all.

THE HERETIK NOTES what may be the most deleterious effect of dubious wars: the extent to which losing wars abroad engender attacks on the patriotism of “dissenters” at home.  The fallacy that a native population at war with an occupying army takes its essential strength from opinion abroad belittles the will of that resistance. American pundit’s pens no more lost Vietnam than they will lose Iraq.  Dissenters who doubt the wisdom of a war cannot be faulted when more general opinions find leaders less smart after years than they seemed at the start.

TIGERHAWK AND HIS ILK who see only ill in dissent should well consider the essence of fallacy found in logic lost.  We’re not going to take it. No, we’re not going to take it.  Not anymore.

IF THE WAR IS MANIFESTLY for the country’s survival or otherwise of great moment, the objectors will be so marginalized that they and their arguments will have no effect on the politics of the country, the morale of its military, or the tactics of the enemy.

IF INDEED.  Since this war was sold as one of the greatest moment and necessity and since the current administration presents it in such stark terms, it would seem "the objectors" should be marginalized.  They are not.

BUT IF IN FACT this is a limited war as you say, why did we rush in when there most obviously were some inconsistencies with the "intelligence?  Dissent is at the heart of a free society.  Truth fears no lesser voices and wins in the end, whether by whisper or more forceful voice.  If free voices of disagreement can not speak, have not our enemies already taken away the very liberty we claim to fight for and cherish?  It is most ironic that Tigerhawk quotes Orwell on pacifism.  War is Peace. Black is White.

IF TIGERHAWK DOUBTS how Bush sells the war, the ramped up rhetoric remains.  Here is Bush: “As our troops fight a ruthless enemy determined to destroy our way of life, they deserve to know that their elected leaders who voted to send them to war continue to stand behind them,” the president said. “Our troops deserve to know that this support will remain firm when the going gets tough. And our troops deserve to know that, whatever our differences in Washington, our will is strong, our nation is united and we will settle for nothing less than victory.”[via MSNBC]

RUTHLESS ENEMY . . . destroy our way of life.  Cadillac sputtering to halt.  Steam.

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BLOGWARS: THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK [Scott Lemieux/ Lawyers, Guns and Money] In light of the latest manifestation of Glenn Reynolds' demagogic hackery, I think we need to be reminded of how Kevin Drum's title should probably be modified along the lines suggested by Ambrose Bierce: In Dr. Johnson's famous dictionary patriotism is defined as the last resort of a scoundrel. With all due respect to an enlightened but inferior lexicographer I beg to submit that it is the first. 

WHO HATES THE WEST? [Matt Yglesias]  . . .while we're on the subject, the extent to which Reynoldsism -- the doctrine that "the left" (whatever it is) has been captured by an irrational and pathological hatred for western values -- is a dishonest, absurd, and manipulative piece of propaganda is the least of its problems.

THE HERETIK NOTES all wars abroad in the end come home.  Some will say home is where the heart is, but a little brain found there cannot hurt.

UPDATE
THE HERETIK ASKS what drives Bush forward on his offensive?
[Joe Gandelman/ The Moderate Voice]The Washington Post has a piece that raises a point that has become all-too familiar these days: it contends President George W. Bush's speech contained a fundamental inaccuracy that some are sure to dismiss as a slight oversight and others will insist represents falsification.

[Brad R/Sadly No] While it's very difficult to determine whether or not the administration officials were lying per se (and for my money, I think they genuinely believed Saddam to be a threat), I think at the very least they exhibited a willful disregard for the truth that was very similar in nature to Dan Rather's and Mary Mapes' unquestioning acceptance of the authenticity of the George Killian National Guard memos. The Bushies so believed that Saddam was secretly developing massive stockpiles of WMD that any evidence to the contrary was simply discarded or ignored- and unlike the debacle at CBS, this exercise in arrogance and groupthink has cost America dearly in blood and treasure. This is why I want the Senate to finish their investigation into whether the administration manipulated intelligence- we deserve to know the truth.

THE HERETIK SAYS why Bush does what he does is not important, only what he does is important.  The parallels between what Bush does now to what he did in the run up to the war could not be more evident.  Just as before the war, The White House is now most selective in what it presents to the American people as evidence.  And the same way dissenters were demonized in the past is what we can expect in the future.  As noted yesterday, the White House is playing this like a permanent campaign issue.

LIVING IN THE PAST? [Goose3Five/Comments from Left Field] Someone needs to remind our President that the 2004 elections are over because he seems to have forgotten. In the face of plummeting poll numbers and mounting Republican defections the President has apparently decided that his best defense is an old, tired offense. In a visit to Pennsylvania yesterday Bush resorted to reopening his 2004 campaign playbook by attacking Democrats for being unpatriotic, leaning most heavily on his old opponent Senator John Kerry. 

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Some debunking from [eriposte/ The Left Coaster] and [Think Progress].  Both posts are well worth the time.


MORE TO FOLLOW

Comments

[TigerHawk]

TIGERHAWK AND HIS ILK who see only ill in dissent should well consider the essence of fallacy found in logic lost. We’re not going to take it. No, we’re not going to take it. Not anymore.

Did you read the post, or misrepresent it on purpose?

[The Heretik]

Tigerhawk, I would go through your whole post and point out a number of um problems, but I think the idea that you deem some dissent "legitimate" says it all. Obviously, therefore some dissent or freedom of speech is "illegitimate." How nice of you to allow some free speech for some and how interesting that you impugn the motives of the dissenters who um impugn the motives of their leaders.

The leaders in this war got considerable free rein to run this war and quell dissent by impugning the motives of dissenters.