He is just entrenching. It is what people do when they get challenged and are on the defensive. He will now continue to take a more and more extreme position until he becomes almost a caricature of himself and an embarrassment for the administration. Beginning of the end, guys. Fortunately.
We're not there already? You know it's bad when the people you are doing fundraisers for won't even be seen with you. The next few months until the new (hopefully democratic) congress comes into session should be interesting. The "military comissions" bill on detainee treatment and trials explicitly gives Bush and Rumsfeld the right to hold ANYONE, citizen or not, indefinatly and without charge. The political risks of doing so, especially to prominent citizens are significant, but the scary part is that is is now legal. My hope is that both houses will change hands next month and that the democrats will at least refuse to rubber stamp the legislation coming out of the White House. Hopefully they'll impeach and indict the whole administration, but I'd be happy with neutering it.
By coincidence, I was reading Darwin's Watch in bed this morning and a quote caught my eye, The joke is lost on most politicians. Changing your mind in politics is seen as a weakness. Witness criticism of Kerry last US election. A fundamentalist never changes his mind on the big issues - and Bush is a dyed-in-the-wool fundamentalist. Unfortunately so are a very large fraction of his fellow citizens. Or don't-cares. Protest was so 70's, now we have our iPods firmly plugged into our ears and rabbit our resentments to the internet.
Yeah Id say the administration has been an embarrassment to America for quite a while. This is asinine though, how doing more of the same that has only worked against the US from the start is way beyond me. It is either so brilliant my feeble brain can’t wrap around it, or it is the desperate plan of an administration that dug itself into a mighty hole which is now cant escape which is my vote. Fundamentalists have no place in an environment that is dynamic. Not changing the strategies and adapting to the world as it comes is just plain stubborn stupidity. There is a name for doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results: insanity Although I dont believe for a second any of this is for the benefit of the American people or for any other reason but to get crooked politicians richer and the rest of us more screwed. Bush is just a puppet with his administration pulling the strings.
Opportunity lost.. I think Iraq was an opportunity lost,for the people of Iraq (often forgotten in these discussions) and everyone else. When Sadam was removed from power it should have been less of a case of "mission accomplished" and more of a case of mission just starting. It should have been better handled from the immediate aftermath of the invasion. It's probably pointless finger pointing now. What good will that do? In my opinion, too many nations see it as a US problem, I think a lot more could be done by others, as a common solution would be for the common good (Ubuntu as clinton would now call it)! Maybe the world needs some of the old school statesman. My 2 cents worth.
Unfortately, this is the natural response of (particularly dumb) people: when confronted with an obstacle, you try more of the same (think of when you walk into a door that won't budge. Your first instinctual response is not to reverse force, but to apply it harder). When you get challenged, you dig your heels in. Change is generally stressful and a challenge: the unknown. Our instinctive response is to rigidly fall back on previously learned strategies.
