Morning Rant: Standard Operating Chaos
One interesting thing about this past weekend's explosion in North Korea is that everyone pretty much assumed from the outset that it was a nuclear test. Later, of course, Colin Powell and others in the Administration were at pains to "reassure" us that it wasn't a nuclear blast after all, though, um, they still didn't know just what it was. But before that, we all initially and immediately accepted the news reports as indicating that the loony government of North Korea now had The Bomb -- in other words, we have come to believe that it's just a matter of time.
Yet the Bushites, with their usual doublethink, continue to laud their own hastily improvised approach to North Korean diplomacy over the "failed" policies of their predecessor. One almost gets the impression that, once North Korea does test a real nuclear bomb, the first thing we'll see is Powell explaining to us that it's all part of the Administration's master plan for making the world safer. And that we should just trust them.
Meanwhile, continued carnage in Iraq (though the victims were "only" Iraqi civilians, so I guess we're not supposed to care). Can anyone look at this pair of stories and conclude that the Bushites are doing a good job? (A piece in Salon today sums up nicely the "opportunity costs" implicit in the Iraq war, and outlines the tangible, dollars-and-cents case that the war has made the U.S. less secure rather than more so.)
All I can say is that, notwithstanding the apparent press attempts, on the basis of several recent polls, to tag Bush's November coronation as inevitable, I hope, for the sake of the country and the world, that this election isn't over yet. But even amid all of the bad news, foreign and domestic, we still see stories about how Bush seems to be pulling ahead, about Kerry's uphill battle, etc., etc. A large slice of the electorate seems to have concluded that the Bush Administration's approach to basic governance -- Standard Operating Chaos -- is somehow the way things are supposed to be.
And it's not.
Yet the Bushites, with their usual doublethink, continue to laud their own hastily improvised approach to North Korean diplomacy over the "failed" policies of their predecessor. One almost gets the impression that, once North Korea does test a real nuclear bomb, the first thing we'll see is Powell explaining to us that it's all part of the Administration's master plan for making the world safer. And that we should just trust them.
Meanwhile, continued carnage in Iraq (though the victims were "only" Iraqi civilians, so I guess we're not supposed to care). Can anyone look at this pair of stories and conclude that the Bushites are doing a good job? (A piece in Salon today sums up nicely the "opportunity costs" implicit in the Iraq war, and outlines the tangible, dollars-and-cents case that the war has made the U.S. less secure rather than more so.)
All I can say is that, notwithstanding the apparent press attempts, on the basis of several recent polls, to tag Bush's November coronation as inevitable, I hope, for the sake of the country and the world, that this election isn't over yet. But even amid all of the bad news, foreign and domestic, we still see stories about how Bush seems to be pulling ahead, about Kerry's uphill battle, etc., etc. A large slice of the electorate seems to have concluded that the Bush Administration's approach to basic governance -- Standard Operating Chaos -- is somehow the way things are supposed to be.
And it's not.
posted by ahab at 7:30 AM
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