Hilarious/Terrifying Quote of the Day
Let's step back from the unnecessary mistakes and the self-inflicted wounds that have characterized the Bush administration. Let's look at the broad forest rather than the often unlovely trees. What do we see? ...Most important, a war in Iraq that has been very difficult, but where—despite some confusion engendered by an almost meaningless "benchmark" report last week—we now seem to be on course to a successful outcome.
—Bill Kristol, going down with the ship (and trying to take us with him) in the Washington Post.
And it gets better/worse from there. Read on! As Kristol says that Bush has been a successful president, but makes—wait for it—no mention of health care, the environment, global warming, Abu Graib, the decreasing popularity and influence of the US around the world, the fiasco that is the Justice Department, Hurricane Katrina, the implosion of the Republican majority, and Osama Bin Laden. To mention a few.
And what about Iraq? Well, "
if we hadn't gone in...Saddam Hussein would be alive and in power and, I dare say, victorious, with the United States (and the United Nations) by now having backed off sanctions and the no-fly zone. He might well have restarted his nuclear program, and his connections with al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups would be intact or revived and even strengthened."
Wait a second. Victorious in what? Staying in power? Well, that's like saying that if Saddam had stayed in power, he would have stayed in power.
Also....we would have backed off the no-fly zone, even though everyone supported it (to the extent that they knew it was still going on) and Bush would still have been president, therefore rather unlikely to cancel the no-fly zone?
Saddam would have restarted his nuclear program even though, well, he hadn't when he could have?
His connections with al Quaeda would have been strengthened even though he was a committed enemy of al Quaeda?
Apparently, though, the surge is working. According to Bill Kristol.
We are routing al-Qaeda in Iraq, we are beginning to curb the Iranian-backed sectarian Shiite militias and we are increasingly able to protect more of the Iraqi population.
What universe does Bill Kristol live in?
One suspects that this will go down as one of the most laughably wrong pieces of pundity of the Bush years. But it kind of makes one want to cry.
