Soft Bigotry, Low Expectations

Juan Cole makes, in slightly nicer language that I'd use, a solid point regarding one of the dauphin's favorite mantras--that "the world is a better off" since Saddam Hussein was driven from Baghdad:

You know, if all you have to boast about is that you are better than Saddam Hussein, it isn't actually a good sign. Can you imagine what would have happened to the Republican Party if its reply to Kerry's criticisms of last summer had been, "Well, the American Republican Party is a damn sight more progressive than Hitler was." Saddam was overthrown on April 9, 2003. It is 2005, and the US has been running Iraq for nearly two years. Now the question is, how does the situation in Iraq compare to the Philippines, or India, or Turkey. Answer: It sucks. There is little security, people are killed daily, there is a massive crime wave, and elections are being held in which most of the candidates cannot be identified for fear of their lives. So the conclusion is that the Bush administration has done a worse job in Iraq than the Congress Party does in India, or the AK Party does in Turkey. That's the standard of comparison once Saddam was gone. And, by the way, veteran NYT journalist John Burns, who is nobody's fool, told Tina Brown last Friday that he was taken aback when an Iraqi told him recently that he wished Saddam were back. This was an Iraqi who really had been delighted at the American invasion. So Bush should drop the cute sound bite about being better than Saddam.

And, staying with Professor Cole for a moment, I saw that Riverbend cited him in her latest post:

This is the speech that I wish President Bush had given in fall, 2002, as he was trying to convince Congress to give him the authority to go to war against Iraq.

A war against Iraq will be expensive. It will cost you, the taxpayer, about $300 billion over five years. I know Wolfowitz is telling you Iraq's oil revenues will pay for it all, but that's ridiculous. Iraq only pumps about $10 billion a year worth of oil, and it's going to need that just to run the new government we're putting in. No, we're going to have to pay for it, ourselves. I'm going to ask you for $25 billion, then $80 billion, then another $80 billion. And so on. I'm going to be back to you for money more often than that unemployed relative that you don't like.

As to the first reference, I'm in wholehearted agreement--quite some time ago I used a sports analogy: Bush continuing to crow about Saddam's overthrow is like assuming he's won the game because he scored the first point(s). It's neither a recipe for success nor a plan for establishing order.

Instead, it's a sign of a serious attention deficit--almost as if Bush just wishes the problem would go away. Which, if you think about it, is the story of his life. Others have come through to bail him out at every juncture--his parents trundled him off to Alabama to schmooze when he was an embarrassment in Houston (what with the drug use, the AWOL problems, etc.); later, he was bailed out of failed businesses, later still he "succeeded" in a business that benefits from a written anti-trust exemption (major league baseball)--it's no wonder Bush has no stomach for the genuine hard work it will take to salvage a Middle East policy that minimizes the huge amount of damage he's caused in such a remarkably short amount of time. No, instead the toy is consigned to the rubbish pile--and no one dare mention that the fact that it's rusted, broken, and beyond repair had something to do with the lack of care on the part of the dauphin. No, only good news must reach his ears...

As to Cole's other post--let's face it, honesty has NEVER been a strong suit with the Bush clan. The only way he'd give a speech like the one Cole suggests would be if James Baker III threatened to carve him a new one if he didn't (and Baker might have to make good--at least in part--before the boy heeded).