Guess who buys into the "avenge G.H.W. Bush" Iraq cliche?
Plus: Teens lie to their parents about sex!
Time's Hugh Sidey gets the scoop from Bush 41:
Perhaps the toughest challenge for the former President is to stay silent as commentators traffic in the cliche that the coming confrontation with Saddam is the result of a Bush failing "to finish the job the last time," the son trying to avenge his father's loss of nerve ...
Hmmm. I seem to remember someone other than a "commentator," someone fairly important, trafficking in the "cliche" that those who failed to finish the job the last time might be overly eager to make up for their prior loss of nerve. .... Oh yes -- it was Bush 41's son, the current President Bush. Remember that endless WaPo Woodward and Balz series on Bush 43's decision-making in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 -- a period in which Bush decided to hold off on an Iraq attack? It contains this paragraph, describing Bush 43's thought process:
His other concern was one that he did not express to his war cabinet but that he said later was part of his own thinking. He knew that around the table were a number of advisers -- Powell, Cheney and Wolfowitz -- who had been with his father during the Gulf War deliberations. "And one of the things I wasn't going to allow to happen is, that we weren't going to let their previous experience in this theater dictate a rational course for the new war," the president said.
No wonder Bush might be "angry" with "jaw ... locked" these days, as Sidey reports. He's "more convinced" than ever "that Desert Storm was fought properly and ended properly," according to Time. Yet one of those who seems to buy into the argument that drives him up the wall -- the argument that some of his former advisers might be making up for his failure to oust Saddam -- is his own son, the President. The psychodrama deepens! Far from calming such talk, Sidey's little Web item should give it new life. Maybe 41 did indirectly put Scowcroft up to writing that op-ed after all. .... This possibility also takes away some credibility from both Scowcroft and James Baker, the Bush 41 advisers who have dissented on Iraq.: If they're, in part, serving Bush 41s personal defensiveness -- or their own -- maybe they aren't acting entirely as Wise Men. That's especially true if you, like me, think Bush 41 is defensive for good reason, in that he really did have a failure of nerve and military strategy at the end of the 1991 Persian Gulf War. (Why call off the battle before those elite Republican Guard units could be beaten and demoralized?) ... 6:12 P.M.
Friday, September 6, 2002
Foolhunting -- 9/11XS Edition: I'm afraid this doesn't seem to be a joke (though you never know). ... Click on the link and wait until the ad for the "Twin Towers evening bag" pops up.... P.S.: Perhaps this product is so wildly cheesy and offensively inappropriate that it achieves a sort of sublime beauty, like "Piss Christ.". But I don't think so!. ... 5:36 P.M.
Thursday, September 5, 2002
Will Adam Nagourney Please Make Up His Mind:
Domestic Concerns Take Center Stage in Congress Races
By ADAM NAGOURNEY
