FUBAR, Indeed

Hesiod beat me to the title above, so I'll just second the motion. Over at Billmon, a few stray wingnuts have proffered the ridiculous idea that it's the libruls who lost Iraq--why am I not surprised by such idiocy? Atrios notes that Condi Rice committed perjury in her testimony this morning (although the mainstream media like NPR and CNN are reporting that she 'held her own.' Right. And the Kool-Aid Mr. Rumsfeld provided was really refreshing!). By the way, I'm sure everyone has seen a number of photographs of Ms. Rice recently that make Howard Dean's infamous "bite the head off a cat" pic look warm and fuzzy.

Oh--while at Billmon, check out his post entitled "The Secret Plan." Not that I'll be celebrating a lot if/when Kerry gets elected: it'll be more like a sigh of relief. But this is writing and analysis at its best. I saw the idiotic New York Times article myself (re: Iraq is both Bush AND Kerry's problem, for some odd reason. Oh--right--something about noblesse oblige, I think). About all I can say in response is that it's time to lay blame for Iraq where it is due: at the feat of that miserable failure, George W. Bush. It's HIS fucking war, goddamnit.

If I recall, on NPR, when they weren't proffering the non-opinion of "Rice really was defending her boss, wasn't she," they made mention of the large number of times the National Security Advisor emphasized 232 days--that's how long Bush was in office before 9/11.

So?

It's not like Dubya was running for President of the Texas Rangers Baseball Club. I don't buy his pathetic little excuse about needing more time to grow into the office. He was and is THE pRESIDENT of the United States. The big leagues, for real. Hell, Lincoln had to deal with successionists upon arrival, Truman assumed office DURING a war, and Franklin Roosevelt was inaugurated in the midst of a depression. What the hell did Bush expect? That issues would be served to him on a batting tee?

Whining about needing more time to get up to speed means that Bush was patently unqualified to be president in the first place. In fact, I'm really beginning to wonder after seeing Nightline (link to from the previous post, if you're interested): did they deliberately send the dauphin off to Nebraska so he wouldn't screw up? Not that I'm saying anyone knew beforehand--except for a couple of folks alerted by an Odigo Company Instant Message--but once the shit HAD hit the fan, it was time to get the boy out of the loop, lest he press the wrong button.

That's not leadership, it's failure. And Iraq is looking more and more like what I expect Dubya's college term papers looked like--that is, if he typed them himself: probably LOTS of errors, scratchouts, correction tape spots, erasures, endnotes added by hand after the fact--and slid under the door to the prof's office several hours after deadline.

Maybe in college he could get away with something like that. Take an "I," or a gentleman's "C," or whatever. Perhaps that also explains some of his appeal to wingnut voters--they aren't the sharpest knives in the drawer either. But this isn't college--it's the most important stage in the world. And it's looking more and more like the show is little more that a certain Dick Cheney doing a ventriloquist's act.