FLIP FLOP FLIP

So George Bush thought we could win the war on terrorism, then he didn't, now he does? Does this make any sense?
George W Bush has staked his presidency on terror issues. And now we see him flipflopping like a fish out of water. His steadfastness and grit are revealed to be nothing more than a disguise.
Perhaps this is all a little unfair. The idea that we could win the war on terror purely by military force is a rightwing fantasy. Bush's admission that changing conditions so that terrorism is marginalized as a tactic sounds almost like a step in the right direction. Almost. What it actually sounds like is defeatism. Like repositioning. Like a politician's slippery attempt at nuance.
The president doesn't do nuance. He said so himself.
The president has to be measured against what he is and what he has pretended to be. He has to stand by his own hype, otherwise he's just a weak little politician. He has to stand firm.
What Bush has done- go on television and tell the country that the war on terrorism can't be won, and then come back a day later and change his tune- is the work of a defensive politician, a gaffe plagued politician, a politician-like politician. As Mark Racicot* might say, it's something the French** might do.


*That name's not French is it? Nah, couldn't be. Racicot's a Republican.
** I obviously have nothing against the French. I don't always like what their government does, but I'm no bigot, and I find the worthless attacks on the French by every Republican and Coors-chuggin' moron in this country a disgrace.

Bush Says Kerry "More Heroic" for going to Vietnam

Why does Bush want to see headlines like this? Is he trying to nail down the chickenhawk vote?
I'm sure somebody's going to turn around and say this is another brilliant play by the infallible Karl Rove, but it looks like a bizarre blunder to me.

It sounds like a bad spy novel

Read this.

I can't get my tiny head around it yet but I'll tell you this, it doesn't set me at ease.

Italian Defense Ministers. Shadowy Iran-contra figures. Espionage on behalf of the Israel lobby (?). Feith. Hadley.

We have a national security apparatus that isn't functioning, turf wars over what the Iran policy should be, questions about who the actors behind our Iraq policy were... it's all crazy-like.

If only we had a congress that wasn't so obsessed with protecting Republicans and a mass media that was more interested in the possibility that foreign states and untrustworthy interests might be manipulating our foreign policy than whether or not Kerry bled the first time he was hit with enemy fire....