Hanging With A Bad Crowd
The BBC article on the execution, Iraq investigates Saddam footage, show that the al Maliki government seems more interested in finding the individual who made the video that showed their mistakes, than the people responsible for the errors in judgment. Of course, they know who approved this mess, but they obviously don’t intend to deal with the core problem.
Both PZ Myers of Pharyngula in his post, How can they screw up this badly?, and Mary of Pacific Views in her post, The Washing of Hands, see a parallel with another, rather well-known, execution.
One of the major problems with the Shrubbery’s administration is that the “attack dog” propaganda that they have used to win elections doesn’t work on the international stage. Instead of selling their program, they have always won by trashing the program of the opposition. That’s why Republicans keep calling for the Democrats to produce plans – they need something to oppose, to attack because they don’t actually have any plans of their own. This is government by slogan and bullet points because the “leader” can’t deal with anything as complex as a paragraph.
Thirteen months ago the White House produced an outline, National Strategy for Victory in Iraq, that was supposed to be “the plan.” They never wrote the paper explaining what it meant.
Now they are going to announce the McCain “surge” plan, which is actually an escalation, but they won’t tell us what the extra troops are going to be doing beyond vague references to “security” or “training.” This will be more improvisation from a troop of “players” lacking in wit and talent.
2 comments
This one at Truthout was awfully good too. The *cowboy* metaphor and actions continue to be the norm around the shrubs.
In defense of cowboys, they generally waited until after the job was done before they engaged in the stupidity many associate with them. The Shrubbery doesn’t want to do the work, he just wants to go to the party.