Jesus!! i used to hate molly ivins.
Now she makes so damn much sense.
Absolute(ly)
http://www.sacbee.com/content/opinion/national/ivins/story/9004173p-9930138c.html
Molly Ivins: Bush is living in Fantasyland
By Molly Ivins
Published 2:15 am PDT Thursday, April 22, 2004
AUSTIN — There was the president at his press
conference looking just like a turtle on a fence post. "They (weapons
of mass destruction) could still be there. They could be hidden."
Saddam Hussein is still an "ally" of the 9-11 terrorists. Hussein was
still "a direct threat" to America. Oi.
The Nation points out a charming little Bush thesis: "Some of the
debate really centers around the fact that people don't believe Iraq
can be free; that if you're Muslim, or perhaps brown-skinned, you
can't be self-governing or free." The infamous "some people" making
this racist argument are cleverly hidden: I never heard of it before
Bush trotted it out.
I got a lovely question last week: "Why do you and your ilk (it's hard
to speak for my entire ilk) hate George W. Bush so much and love Osama
bin Laden?" If that's what public discussion has come down to, we
really are in trouble. In fact, we're in trouble anyway.
According to the Rand think tank study on peacekeeping, we would need
500,000 troops in Iraq just to provide security. Guess what? We don't
have 'em. We're stuck big time. It may not be Vietnam, but it's sure a
quagmire.
A heavy contender in the Immortal Idiocy category is Paul Wolfowitz's
pre-war assertion to Congress, "There is no history of ethnic conflict
in Iraq." According to a report in the New York Times, Sunni, Shi'a
and Kurds are all arming themselves in anticipation of civil war.
(Some superb reporting from Iraq is being done by John Kifner and John
Burns in the Times.)
The perpetually peevish pundit George Will has condescended to explain
to us all that our problems in Iraq are but the obligations of empire.
Yup, Bwana Will-ji says we gotta take up the white man's burden.
"Regime change, occupation, nation-building — in a word, empire — are
a bloody business. Now Americans must steel themselves for
administering the violence necessary to disarm or defeat Iraq's urban
militias." That's us, gotta steel ourselves to administer the
necessary violence because THEY are making us do it. One assumes after
penning this advice, Bwana Will-ji grabbed the memsahib and headed on
down to the Imperialists' Ball.
Meanwhile, the Heathers (as Washington's lightweight pundits are
collectively known) are atwitter over the new Bob Woodward book. From
reading secondhand accounts of it, the item that stopped me was not
when Bush decided to invade Iraq —- as per Clinton's testimony to the
9-11 commission and Paul O'Neill's book, Bush apparently wanted to
invade from before he was sworn in. It's the Prince Bandar story that
left me whomper-jawed. Do you remember when someone who was connected
to someone who was connected to someone who was connected to China was
found to have raised money for Bill Clinton? The right wing came
completely unglued over it, and all manner of hideous conspiracy
theories were advanced. Maybe the Saudis trying to influence our
elections shouldn't startle me — the new book "House of Bush, House of
Saud" is all about that connection. Still, the non-denial denials from
the White House and the Saudis smell like rotten meat. Just what we
need, a prez in hock to the Saudis.
One of the eerie things about Bush's press conference performance was
just how divorced from reality he is. Not only is he still claiming
we're going to find the WMD and that Saddam Hussein was linked to
9-11, but he actually claimed we went to war to save the credibility
of the United Nations. The man is living in Fantasyland.
As Lewis Lapham points out in an essay in the current Harper's, we are
seeing "the systematic substitution of ideological certainty for
reasonable doubt across the entire spectrum of issues bearing on the
public health and welfare. ... The disdain for disloyal or unpatriotic
fact defines the Bush Administration's approach not only to questions
likely to embarrass the oil, weapons and insurance industries but also
to those that might interfere with its fanciful conceptions of war and
money." Lapham cites the report by the Union of Concerned Scientists,
"Scientific Integrity in Policymaking," a depressing collection of
instances in which the administration has either censored or ignored
scientific fact. Those who have known Bush for a long time know he is
capable of leaving the realm of fact and logic in favor of his "gut"
or "instinct" on several issues. It seems to me the trait is becoming
more pronounced.
Denying that Iraq is a rapidly escalating tragedy will do nothing to
help us or the Iraqis get out of it. Pointing out that it's a mess
does not make one a fan of Osama bin Laden nor a bigot concerning
"brown-skinned people."
Let's get a grip here, team.
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