It’s a sad commentary of the sheep-like quality of the American electorate that a few weeks of frantic spinning have improved George Bush’s approval ratings. The problem for King George is that reality will always intrude of his policies which are based on faulty premises and thereby doomed to failure. Tax cuts for his rich and super rich pals may drive the consumption of BMW’s but they don’t help sell Fords and Chevrolets, and the latter is what drives (so to speak) our economy. In Iraq — well, it’s seems to me a lot like Vietnam. The idea seems to still be that we’re liberating a country from domination, when in fact it’s more like we’re fighting the whole country itself, and the only way to "defend" it from itself is to destroy it. Another "critical" election is coming up, the third or fourth one of those we’ve had. Bush ran in the last election on the idea of the January election solving everything, when in fact it seems to cause more tension. It’s just another one of the ideological points of faith that he sticks to regardless of reality, the belief that elections will be the magic bullet to end strife and bring on the American way of life. Well, they have elections in Iran and they had them in South Vietnam. Spin that.
Here’s a chilling quote that’s very apropos:
"Bush’s closest advisers have long been aware of the religious nature of his political commitments. In recent interviews, one former senior official, who served in Bush’s first term, spoke extensively about the connection between the President’s religious faith and his view of the war in Iraq. After the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the former official said, he was told that Bush felt that ‘God put me here’ to deal with the war on terror. The Presidents belief was fortified by the Republican sweep in the 2002 congressional elections; Bush saw the victory as a purposeful message from God that ‘he’s the man,’ the former official said. Publicly, Bush depicted his reelection as a referendum on the war; privately he spoke of it as another manifestation of divine purpose."
–Seymour M. Hersh, The New Yorker
In a way that’s why Bush and the radical Muslims are at loggerheads — they’re both preaching the same thing, that God is on their side and that their enemies must be totally destroyed. They both think that they are completely good and people who don’t agree with them are totally evil. They both have narrow, medieval black and white views of the world which are at odds and they’re dragging the rest of us down with them. I’ve always thought that was one of the reasons the Nazis hated the Jews so much — how can a "master race" and a "chosen people" co-exist? The Jews sensibly wait for some future date for Jehovah to excise the rest of mankind, the Nazis unfortunately had to try and do it themselves right then and there, producing one of the more horrific events in human history. (Or not, if you’re Mel Gibson’s Dad). Inflexible ideologies are the recipe for disaster in a flexible world and we’re witnessing one humdinger of a disaster right now in Iraq, the worst part of it being that these religious zealots are acting in the name of America.
A Leak In The Safe 