Hey Gomer - What You Doin' in September?
There seems to be a consistent appalling and amazing bumpkin-like quality to the journalism and dialogue regarding the supposed significance of the September timeframe for “revisiting” the issue of troop strength and strategy in Iraq. It’s the sort of “Duh” thing that can be amusing in the context of, say, classic musicals – rubes and snake-oil salesmen in the likes of Oklahoma! and The Music Man come to mind.
But in this context it’s damned unfunny. How eager we seem to be to believe that this time it will be different and September will be a magical epiphany. Oh sure, the administration and those subservient enough to still be in positions of seeming authority will for once find a way to accurately assess and document the true state of affairs in Iraq. They will come back and report candidly to Congress and We the People on their newly-accurate findings and let the chips fall where they may. Depending on the findings, they’ll schedule parades to celebrate the “win” or the dude and his entourage will admit they were wrong and we’ll all grit our teeth and come together in a new spirit of camaraderie to do whatever it takes to promptly end the occupation.
Say what? Could we dial up that skepticism just a tad please? Have we forgotten that Petraeus seems to have his present assignment at least largely because he was the first candidate willing to sufficiently stifle whatever independence/testosterone he has left after a long military career so as to pass muster with the cordon of slimy loyalty-sniffers around the president? Recall that more than a few of his peers were (and are) openly opposed to the “surge” program. This is obviously not someone with the courage to break it to Our Fool that he is the worst president in the last 30 years and is even more of an idiot than his father and that Hollywood stooge. Which is to say, General P gives every sign of being a Good Soldier - like those in Germany in the ‘30’s.
But somehow, mirabile dictu, in September 2007 this man is going to do a Moses act and come to us with absolute truth regarding the Situation in Iraq (no doubt carved in stone).
And a reminder. These are seasoned recidivist liars. History demonstrates that they have absolutely no compunction about fudging, distorting, dodging, and outright lying. What they most enjoy seems to be the closely-cropped verbiage where they didn’t “actually” say that. I don’t think I would be far from the mark to suggest that almost every answer they offer up to the rare question they submit to must be closely-parsed. Lying is what they do for a living – at our expense.
There has been an ever-receding horizon for the Barbara’s black sheep. We never actually get to compare performance to claims, do we? He has been well-enabled by such as Tom Friedman, who even has a mocking entry in his name in Wikipedia as a result of his routine “always-six-months-out” forecast of success. Of course the administration and their mindless sycophants (Broder, et al) merely refine this by having it be a 3 or 4 month timeframe. They've been that close to victory for several years now! I wonder what the average Iraqi thinks of that.
And speaking of success, how about a specific target or two? The closest we seem to have come up with so far are the benchmarks the dude set in connection with the “surge” – and none of these have apparently been met! How are we supposed to judge success or failure when the house-that-used-to-be-white-but-now-is-a-Superfund-Site cannot identify anything resembling targets, goals, or metrics? (The reality of course is that they’re preoccupied chasing their tail on multiple criminal investigations, not to mention trying to defend our occupation of Iraq and the meaningless sacrifice of thousands of American and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives.)
"September" appears to me to be yet another episode of the constantly-receding horizon. George and reality are never on the same side of the planet. Why don't we just be pro-active like real MBAs and tackle this obvious problem now?
But in this context it’s damned unfunny. How eager we seem to be to believe that this time it will be different and September will be a magical epiphany. Oh sure, the administration and those subservient enough to still be in positions of seeming authority will for once find a way to accurately assess and document the true state of affairs in Iraq. They will come back and report candidly to Congress and We the People on their newly-accurate findings and let the chips fall where they may. Depending on the findings, they’ll schedule parades to celebrate the “win” or the dude and his entourage will admit they were wrong and we’ll all grit our teeth and come together in a new spirit of camaraderie to do whatever it takes to promptly end the occupation.
Say what? Could we dial up that skepticism just a tad please? Have we forgotten that Petraeus seems to have his present assignment at least largely because he was the first candidate willing to sufficiently stifle whatever independence/testosterone he has left after a long military career so as to pass muster with the cordon of slimy loyalty-sniffers around the president? Recall that more than a few of his peers were (and are) openly opposed to the “surge” program. This is obviously not someone with the courage to break it to Our Fool that he is the worst president in the last 30 years and is even more of an idiot than his father and that Hollywood stooge. Which is to say, General P gives every sign of being a Good Soldier - like those in Germany in the ‘30’s.
But somehow, mirabile dictu, in September 2007 this man is going to do a Moses act and come to us with absolute truth regarding the Situation in Iraq (no doubt carved in stone).
And a reminder. These are seasoned recidivist liars. History demonstrates that they have absolutely no compunction about fudging, distorting, dodging, and outright lying. What they most enjoy seems to be the closely-cropped verbiage where they didn’t “actually” say that. I don’t think I would be far from the mark to suggest that almost every answer they offer up to the rare question they submit to must be closely-parsed. Lying is what they do for a living – at our expense.
There has been an ever-receding horizon for the Barbara’s black sheep. We never actually get to compare performance to claims, do we? He has been well-enabled by such as Tom Friedman, who even has a mocking entry in his name in Wikipedia as a result of his routine “always-six-months-out” forecast of success. Of course the administration and their mindless sycophants (Broder, et al) merely refine this by having it be a 3 or 4 month timeframe. They've been that close to victory for several years now! I wonder what the average Iraqi thinks of that.
And speaking of success, how about a specific target or two? The closest we seem to have come up with so far are the benchmarks the dude set in connection with the “surge” – and none of these have apparently been met! How are we supposed to judge success or failure when the house-that-used-to-be-white-but-now-is-a-Superfund-Site cannot identify anything resembling targets, goals, or metrics? (The reality of course is that they’re preoccupied chasing their tail on multiple criminal investigations, not to mention trying to defend our occupation of Iraq and the meaningless sacrifice of thousands of American and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives.)
"September" appears to me to be yet another episode of the constantly-receding horizon. George and reality are never on the same side of the planet. Why don't we just be pro-active like real MBAs and tackle this obvious problem now?
posted by Sir Gumbo at 10:23 PM
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