Prodigal Children
I blogged about this article in the Washington Post two days ago and merely pointed out that the generals knew that they could only scare up 20,000 troops for any escalation. It was early in the morning and I was tired.
But Steve Benen catches an eye-popping passage in the article that reveals the extent of the Bush Administration's monumental carelessness and incompetence, all in an effort to raise the finger to his dad:
I realize that the Bush White House looked at the Iraq Study Group with some disdain. So-called “elder statesman,� mostly friends of Bush’s dad, weren’t going to come in and tell the president how to wage his war, no siree. Within a few minutes of Bush thanking ISG members for their work, Bush made the panel instantly irrelevant. The report that was going to “change everything� went from front-of-the-bookstore to remainder-table-discount in a matter of days.But far more troubling is the notion that the Bush administration has shaped its escalation plan in part to spite the ISG.
Although the president was publicly polite, few of the key Baker-Hamilton recommendations appealed to the administration, which intensified its own deliberations over a new “way forward� in Iraq. How to look distinctive from the study group became a recurring theme.As described by participants in the administration review, some staff members on the National Security Council became enamored of the idea of sending more troops to Iraq in part because it was not a key feature of Baker-Hamilton. (emphasis mine)
I had to read that a couple of times to make sure I wasn’t seeing things. The Bush gang decided to change course in Iraq, but went out of their way to “look distinctive� from the Iraq Study Group? Troop escalation wasn’t in the ISG report, so the Bush gang latched onto the idea because the ISG didn’t endorse it? As if this all some kind of exercise in Oedipal spite?
Exactly what kind of men-children are we dealing with here?
The type of men children who jokes about "calling his lawyer" when being asked questions about human rights abuse. The type who mocks those he puts to death after rejecting their pleas for clemency. The type use launches an undeclared war in order to look good to the voters.