Blame Bush Cheney Again.
The Hollywood film-maker Michael Moore publishes an open letter of verbose denunciations that fixes POTUS as a "war president" unless he retreats from Afghanistan. The signal from the glamorously noisy Left is that POTUS is now a disappointment and perhaps headed to becoming a disgrace like the convenient jackanape George Bush. Democratic Congressman and whopper-teller Maurice Hinchey demonstrates a school of Bush-blame-shifting above by arguing that Bush kept back the Rangers from Tora Bora in order to allow Bin Laden to escape so that Bush could have en excuse to invade Iraq. Reworking this wondrous paranoid logic, perhaps we can argue that Bush invaded Iraq so that he could create an opportunity for an Iraq critic to win the presidency and reinvade Afghanistan in order to provoke Bin Laden into action in order to create conditions for Israel to bomb Iran. Sure. Michael Moore discovers that POTUS is a product of Bush and Cheney conspiracy genius.
Dangerous.
Bush won't stop until he destroys the Earth.
The blame shifting continues. It’s circular and vicious. Bush is to blame for everything. We’ll be hearing more of it tonight, I’m sure. It’s the only thing that’s actually worked so far – why give it up now? It started with Bush being responsible for 9/11; for Katrina; for Iraq; Afghanistan; for failing to get bin Laden (above); for the economy. I’ve even heard someone say that Bush suppressed climate change data.
Bush was the evil genius who single-handedly brought America to its knees; or, the hapless incompetent of whom it is said that the mere sight of his cowboy hat caused the sun to blush and plunge the entire globe into an irredeemable void.
Sorry, I don’t buy it. I don’t think the majority of the American people buy it either. There’s only so much truth that can be stretched before it snaps back and takes out the eye of the strongman.
I’m willing to bet that if elections were held today, Obama’s team would lose hands down to Bush-Cheney. But that’s neither here nor there. Come to think of it, where are those Bush memoirs? Don’t tell me no publisher dares touch it. But, I wouldn’t be surprised.
The war isn’t in Afghanistan; it’s here. It’s raging deep within every American heart. In a sense, the whole Afghanistan thing tonight is blame-shifting subterfuge. Afghanistan is the rock that is and has always been. It is the crucible that tests our own mettle. We are the ones precariously balanced on the cusp of change. We voted for the knife edge openly. We coveted it; courted it; prayed for it. We’ve already drawn blood. “Be careful what you wish for…”
If Obama calls for more troops tonight, he will do so simply to point out that Michael Moore is not the one conducting foreign policy. If he wimps out, he’ll give the conservatives more blood to write his epithet. Before tonight Obama has been in the position of the girl who claims to be ‘a little bit pregnant’ (specifically with respect to Afghanistan). Tonight he will have to say whether he plans for an abortion or not. We’ve set it up so that, either way he decides, he loses. Slick as he is, he may ultimately attempt to sidestep the issue and hand-off the baby to Bush. Will it work?
http://peterkoelliker.blogspot.com/
tonight, from the sober and dour anti-Obama Progressives: John Nichols of the NAtion on the Democratic revolt from the Afghan policy, and Katrina vanden Heuvel editor of the Nation on the POTUS speech.