Some tragic humour ....

---------------------------------------------------------------

Catastrophic Success
The worse Iraq gets, the more we must be winning.
By William Saletan
Posted Tuesday, Sept. 28, 2004, at 2:53 PM PT



In 1999, George W. Bush said we needed to cut taxes because the economy was
doing so well that the U.S. Treasury was taking in too much money, and we
could afford to give some back to the people who earned it. In 2001, Bush
said we needed the same tax cuts because the economy was doing poorly, and
we had to return the money so that people would spend and invest it.

Bush's arguments made the wisdom of cutting taxes unfalsifiable. In good
times, tax cuts were affordable. In bad times, they were necessary. Whatever
happened proved that tax cuts were good policy. When Congress approved the
tax cuts, Bush said they would revive the economy. You'd know that the tax
cuts had worked, because more people would be working. Three years later,
more people aren't working. But in Bush's view, that, too, proves he was
right. If more people aren't working, we just need more tax cuts.

Now Bush is playing the same game in postwar Iraq. When violence there was
subsiding, he said it proved he was on the right track. Now violence is
increasing, and Bush says this, too, proves he's on the right track.

SNIP> If the situation in Iraq improves in the coming weeks, Bush will take
credit. If it deteriorates, he'll take credit for that, too. "Terrorist
violence may well escalate as the January elections draw near," he warned
Thursday. "The terrorists know that events in Iraq are reaching a decisive
moment. If elections go forward, democracy in Iraq will put down permanent
roots, and terrorists will suffer a dramatic defeat." So take heart. We've
got 'em right where we want 'em.
William Saletan is Slate's chief political correspondent and author of
Bearing Right: How Conservatives Won the Abortion War.

Article URL: http://slate.msn.com/id/2107383/