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Archive for December 7th, 2006

(Wise) Man Down!

Begun, this War On Christmas has.

Dammit, why did today have to be the day I didn’t bring a camera? The Treo is pretty nifty, but it is not exactly a State-Of-The-Art Digital Photographic Apparatus.

8 comments December 7th, 2006 at 06:32pm Posted by Eli

Entry Filed under: Favorites,Photoblogging,Pittsburgh,Weirdness

Lyric Of The Day

From the Jack Rubies’ “Good Morning Heartache”:

My bad bad doggie bit my face
I left his kennel in disgrace

The Jack Rubies are seriously underrated, or perhaps more accurately, not even rated at all.

1 comment December 7th, 2006 at 06:21pm Posted by Eli

Entry Filed under: Quotes

I’ve meditated on the ISG Report a little more, and I’m realizing that maybe it isn’t a complete waste of time and paper. I stand by my original assessment that even if implemented with scientific exactitude, it’s not going to come close to salvaging Iraq, and I stand by my subsequent prediction that Bush will use it to put bipartisan lipstick on the stay-the-course pig. What makes the ISG Report a Big Deal is that after all the hype about how the ISG is such a bipartisan collection of Serious Old Wise Men (and Sandra Day), they completely and utterly trashed the administration’s approach to the war – not just strategy (or its absence) or tactics, but also the gaming and suppression of negative information.

In other words, after being given a whole lot of (undeserved) credibility as a nonpartisan band of fair dealers, they exposed the Iraq invasion and occupation for the deadly, destabilizing, and incompetently executed fraud that it really is. It’s one thing to hear that sort of thing from us lily-livered, Bush-hating liberals, but from James Baker and Ed Meese? Ed MEESE, people! It moves the Iraq-is-a-destructive failure narrative squarely into the center of “acceptable” political opinion.

Sure, the White House and the corporate media will do all they can to retroactively marginalize the ISG and spin their findings, but I think it’s too late.

One question keeps coming to mind: Did 41 know about this? I assume he had some idea of the recommendations, but did he know Junior’s War was going to get slammed so bluntly? And if so, did he try to put on the brakes, or did he give it his blessing? I think the father-son dynamic/rivalry is twisted enough that that could be entirely possible. I bet the Bush Christmas dinner will be severely festivity-impaired this year either way, maybe with Junior sulking by himself at the kiddie table.

5 comments December 7th, 2006 at 05:23pm Posted by Eli

Entry Filed under: Bush,Favorites,Iraq,Media,Politics,Republicans,War

Simple Answers To Simple Questions

Will It Work in the White House?

No.

Really, the only question is what kind of political use the WH will make of the report. Pretend to gratefully embrace it and then gut it, or simply fail to follow through, or follow through incompetently?

Or attack it as insufficiently resolute and hold it up as an example of the wishy-washy pitfalls of bipartisanship?

Given the national mood (“The war sucks, get out now”), and the polite-but-noncomittal tenor of Bush’s public comments about it, it looks like it’s going to be some variation of the former. Bush will use the report to bathe stay-the-course in a rosy, bipartisany glow. He will pretend to adopt just enough of it so that credulous right- and center-wing pundits (I’m looking at you, Broder) can admire his open-mindedness and willingness to listen to advice and change course, all the while ignoring the fact that he’s doing no such thing.

Look for Atrios and all the other media-watchdog bloggers to start going to town on this within one Friedman Unit (six months).

17 comments December 7th, 2006 at 11:03am Posted by Eli

Entry Filed under: Bush,Iraq,Media,Politics,Wankers,War