O, What a Tangled Web They Weave
After reading this story, I don’t know whether to cry, weep, or sob (via DeLong):
Faced with almost daily reports of sectarian carnage in Iraq, congressional Republicans are shifting their message on the war from speaking optimistically of progress to acknowledging the difficulty of the mission and pointing up mistakes in planning and execution.
Here, guys, let me boil it down for you:
Mistake #1: We shouldn’t have invaded.
Mistake #2: Once we did invade, we had no plan.
Easy, no? Here, I’ll illustrate it for you with posters of Kevin Costner films:
The poster on the left represents the conception of the Iraq war.
The poster on the right represents its execution. As you can see, both are unquestionably disasters.
Rep. Christopher Shays (Conn.) is using his House Government Reform subcommittee on national security to vent criticism of the White House’s war strategy and new estimates of the monetary cost of the war. Rep. Gil Gutknecht (Minn.), once a strong supporter of the war, returned from Iraq this week declaring that conditions in Baghdad were far worse “than we’d been led to believe” and urging that troop withdrawals begin immediately.
What a loser-defeatist. The time has obviously come for patriotic Minnesotans to start a “John Hinderaker for Congress” write-in campaign.
And freshman Sen. John Thune (S.D.) told reporters at the National Press Club that if he were running for reelection this year, “you obviously don’t embrace the president and his agenda.”
*Sigh*
Couldn’t these guys have reached that conclusion, oh, I don’t know, two years ago?
Rank-and file Republicans who once adamantly backed the administration on the war are moving to a two-stage new message, according to some lawmakers. First, Republicans are making it clear to constituents they do not agree with every decision the president has made on Iraq. Then they boil the argument down to two choices: staying and fighting or conceding defeat to a vicious enemy.
The shift is subtle, but Republican lawmakers acknowledge that it is no longer tenable to say the news media are ignoring the good news in Iraq and painting an unfair picture of the war.
No kidding. Now who’s gonna have the heart to tell Glenn Reynolds?
“It’s like after Katrina, when the secretary of homeland security was saying all those people weren’t really stranded when we were all watching it on TV,” said Rep. Patrick T. McHenry (R-N.C.). “I still hear about that. We can’t look like we won’t face reality.”
The past few years of GOP rule are kind of like a circus where the clowns blow stuff up instead of making people laugh.
Well, I laughed. Sorry about all the dead people and stuff.
Read that last bit again. Seriously:
“It’s like after Katrina, when the secretary of homeland security was saying all those people weren’t really stranded when we were all watching it on TV,� said Rep. Patrick T. McHenry (R-N.C.). “I still hear about that. We can’t look like we won’t face reality.�
Or put another way: “People are still mad that we pretended all those people didn’t die. What gives?”
Shays is likely to get his ass kicked in November – he’s got the same hard sell as Lieberman.
The fact is that if the GOP doesn’t project the truth about Iraq, they will lose.
The truth about Iraq is that the troops have a high morale, despite leftist efforts to the contrary.
The truth about Iraq is that Iraqis think Iraq is safer than ever, despite leftist efforts to the contrary.
The truth about Iraq is that it’s moving in the right direction, and President Bush’s leadership has transformed Iraq from being a WMD-posessing terrorist sewer into a lively free nation.
If the Republicans turn their backs on Bush, they deserve to fail.
I liked Waterworld. It’s a great movie to have playing on the home DVD while you’re out grocery shopping or having your hair done.
Is the war over yet?
I was more or less entertained by the Postman and Waterworld. I could have done without the not-so-climatic wrestlin’ fight at the end on the former or the peeing into the water recycling machine scene of the latter.
If the Republicans turn their backs on Bush, they deserve to fail.
Did I hear a little sob?
and President Bush’s leadership has transformed Iraq from being a WMD-posessing terrorist sewer into a lively free nation.
Wow. A “Lively free nation”. Lively. Now THAT’S funny. 6000 dead in 60 days. Lively. Oh yeah, gary baby, lively is a GREAT way to describe Iraq. In fact, you oughta go over to Baghdad and hang with the Lively Shi’a. They’d show you a time, youngster. They’d show you the time of your life…
mikey
Well, at least someone is getting a bicycle.
Now we know what Baghdad Bob is up to.
But Mikey! They’ve got a McDonald’s over there! How bad can it possibly be?
Bah. I knew conditions were deterioriating when Smurf molestation became commonplace. All those blue fingers…disgusting!
No movie involving Olivia Williams nudity can be a complete disaster.
and President Bush’s leadership has transformed Iraq from being a WMD-posessing terrorist sewer into a lively free nation.
A lively Free-fire nation, that is.
Shays and the rest of the Republican rank-and-file are obviously deeply unserious about winning the War on Terra (TM)
“Iraqis think Iraq is safer than ever”
You know, this would be funny if it weren’t so freakin’ sad.
President Bush’s leadership has transformed Iraq from being a WMD-posessing terrorist sewer into a lively free nation.
Maybe when Gavin’s finished knitting he will reveal who is sock puppeting with Gary, because no one is truly this stupid.
If the Iraq war is Waterworld would that make Zarqawi Dennis Hopper? Will a cunningly-coded tattoo map lead us to the weapons of mass destruction? And who on earth will be our Kevin Costner?
I liked the Postman, was entertained in an ironic manner by Waterworld.
But the analogy still mostly works, I suppose, if I were to lower both a level– could be convinced to like the concept, found the execution shitty on every level.
Gary’s back! Hooray! I hope his two-week vacation away from the Netvocates office has left him rested and ready!
Incidentally, Ruppster, I think you’ve been hitting one of the following:
Is it:
Exhibit A
-OR-
Exhibit B
Brad, that Wikipedia bong article is awesome, dude. It’s more detailed than a lot of the science-based ones I read. [makes note to clean out own bong before getting wasted before the Flaming Lips concert on Sunday]
“We can’t look like we won’t face reality.”
So the plan would be to LOOK like they can face reality?
So, how many days before these turncoats attempt to make all of us left-wing nay-sayers and people who were actually RIGHT from the beginning of this little war effort the enemy who were really the ones saying what they’ve been saying?
This Garybotâ„¢ seems broken, in an objectively pro anti-Rethuglican way.
hehehe. Gary isn’t even worth a rebuttle, this time.
He will always be S,N’s very own crazy soapbox street-corner guy.
Waterworld wasn’t that bad of a picture, except for the snotty kid.
Sorry for book whoring (well…not really sorry…I apologize for the book whoring…and for the Hank Kimball impression…) but just a bandwagon-hopping fyi: Both The Postman and Waterworld receive a thorough and enthusiastic rogering in our book Better Living Through Bad Movies, in the chapter entitled, “It’s The End Of The World As We Know It And I Feel Fine But You’re All Dead,” which contains many helpful hints on maximizing your capital in the coming jism-based economy.
Brad, Gary would never do drugs. He’s just been been dining out with Hewitt.
Brad, Gary would never do drugs. He’s just been been dining out with Hewitt.
Quite possibly he’s sufferiing from the ill effects from having watched that vlog down there.
The past few years of GOP rule are kind of like a circus where the clowns blow stuff up instead of making people laugh.
I suspect you may have just written the epitaph for the lost decade.
.
Waterworld ruled.
Last movie of it’s kind ever produced. Real, not CGI bullshit. Waterworld was the most expensive movie ever, it cost 100 million, chumpchange for crappy 300 million dollar movies these days. (Mission Imposible 3 for one)
Jesus Christ these people are evil:
Sen. John Thune (S.D.) told reporters at the National Press Club that if he were running for reelection this year, “you obviously don’t embrace the president and his agenda.�
No, that’s a bad political strategy.
I had to read McHenry’s quote 4 times for it to compute. My mind rejected the fact that someone would say this, can think like this and say it out loud:
“It’s like after Katrina, when the secretary of homeland security was saying all those people weren’t really stranded when we were all watching it on TV,� said Rep. Patrick T. McHenry (R-N.C.). “I still hear about that. We can’t look like we won’t face reality.�
Salient point: Katrina victims?
No, “We can’t look like we won’t face reality.”
Gary, how much clearer does it need to be? These people want nothing but power. The siezing and consolidation of power by any means, including changing people’s ability to know what’s real, what actually exists. Do you get how immoral this is? Gary I’m a tolerant, fair and inclusive person, but I’m beginning to think you’re a pot-stirrer? Because there’s no human way to identify with these people. What, you have Daddy issues? Sorry hon, but they don’t want you either.
Yea, GareBear’s baaaack! And thank gawd, too. This new troll, Jose Chung, is teh suxxorr! Dood, he has even *less* of a sense of humor than *you*!! No, really!!1 Sure, you suck and all, but you’re head and shoulders above Jose (IOW, you’re a dandruff-dusted louse, but we loves ya so!).
Glen Reynolds referenced Josh Manchester who said:
The ‘big bang,’ as invading Iraq has sometimes been called, was meant to reorder the nature of politics in the region.
http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=072106B
So Cindy Sheehan now has her answer. We invaded Iraq, and her son Casey died, to “reorder the nature of politics in the region.”
Like the way you reorder a deck of cards by playing “52 pickup.” Or the way you reorder the contents of a college cafeteria by having a food fight. Or reorder a car and its passengers by spinning them across the oncoming traffic lanes into a telephone pole. It might all work out for the best, in the long run. The cards might fall into a pattern predicting the tosser’s life in accurate, joyful terms leading to a marriage proposal. Perhaps the tomato sauce used in the spaghetti sauce contained botulin toxin. One of the car passengers might have become the parent of the next Hitler or Stalin.
Couldn’t we have just dropped billions of dollars worth of Iraqi currency onto the country instead of invading? I think that would have reordered it.
Josh Manchester also made this sage observation:Opportunities forsaken are opportunities lost forever, as MacArthur was sometimes rumored to say.
I shall take the opportunity to say that Glenn Reynolds shows no dignity by continuing to pretend that the U.S. invasion of Iraq by Bushco was a good idea with good results. When the tree limbs come crashing down into the pool, the table where the umbrella drinks rest flips over, and the wind speed is measured at 150 mph, it’s time to admit that it’s not a sunny summer afternoon and admit that you wish you had given more thought to the evacuation plan.
Hey, D. Sidhe, totally OT, but I’ve been reading a really fun book that you might be interested in… and it just happens to be in Amazon’s bargain bin!
the coming jism-based economy.
Hee!
Oh Jeebus, don’t tell me you’ve got the Jose Chung troll over here now, too! I thought its Netvocates assignment was Digby’s blog. I don’t know if I can stand both the Garybot and the Wank Chung in the same place. The Singularity is getting very close now…
Marq, I read that. It was kind of… overly sensational and not entirely accurate. There’s a documentary out there with the author peering at sharks on lines, and as shark docs go, that one kind of sucked, too. May I suggest Richard Ellis’ newly updated Great White Shark? After which, check out Deep Atlantic and The Search For The Giant Squid, now somewhat outdated, but not by much. (More outdated, but still very popular, his Book of Sharks.)
Wait, what was this thread about?
Shoot. It cut off my spider joke. Oh, well.
Is it just me, or does the current instantiation of Ruppert — programmed to describe Iraq as a “lively free nation” — sound suspiciously close to Jose Chung on an earlier thread, banging on about “an attractive, saucy, spontaneous woman; free and strong and fun-loving and saying whatever she wants”?
A lot of recycled source code, is my suspicion.
I liked the Postman, but then I’ll watch anything set in a post-apocalyptic world fraught with peril. It’s the rapturist in me, I suppose.
I can see Sadly, No(tm) is objectivly pro Keven Costner…the horror.