wanted to make sure you didn't miss this thread.
Who is out there, to lead us and be straighforward about the nature of this war? I'm trying to think of a pol who is outspoken and unafraid to say yes this war is against Jihadists and Islamism. First mistake: calling this a War on Terror. Next hundred mistakes: not immediatly and forcefully answering dishonest critics of the war. (For instance, why do WE always have to remind people that the Clinton policy for Iraq was regime change?)
I don't think we should have gone to the U.N. before invading, either. For a week or two it looked like Bush might actually skip the U.N. entirely, but there was the hugh and series.
It was there the administration over-sold the WMD case and bewildered people (those who couldn't understand there was more than one reason to go to war, those who shouted "they keep changing their story, why we're in Iraq!)
I remember before 9/11 , President Bush giving his major speech on embryonic stem cell research. I thought then he was a great man. I still believe history will be respectful, but GWB will be the man who was president BEFORE The War. And in a way, he kept it in America's peripheral vision, as if we were only glancing an iceberg.
"Glancing the iceberg" is exactly right. GWB was frank about it but at the very same time tried to have life go on and not worry us with the details. A bit like not showing the bodies in the air falling from the tower. I sometimes had the feeling he did not want to "arrouse" us.
That said, GWB I do believe will someday be seen as the visionary who did not articulate his vision. That is a weakness of this WH. They say too little, too late and lose the PR war.
This damned infernal citizenry is addicted to PR. The collective IQ must be 70 and the attention span is very short. And the politicalization of the war was the critical factor I think.
I hope I am wrong. But I expect a bad outcome over years, a slow bad outcome. I hope I am wrong.
"Glancing the iceberg" is exactly right. GWB was frank about it but at the very same time tried to have life go on and not worry us with the details. A bit like not showing the bodies in the air falling from the tower. I sometimes had the feeling he did not want to "arrouse" us.
That said, GWB I do believe will someday be seen as the visionary who did not articulate his vision. That is a weakness of this WH. They say too little, too late and lose the PR war.
This damned infernal citizenry is addicted to PR. The collective IQ must be 70 and the attention span is very short. And the politicalization of the war was the critical factor I think.
I hope I am wrong. But I expect a bad outcome over years, a slow bad outcome. I hope I am wrong.