HAVE YOU NO SHAME, MR. PRESIDENT?

[ProSense]

Richard Reeves

HAVE YOU NO SHAME, MR. PRESIDENT?

Fri Aug 25, 8:05 PM ET

Snip...

There were those, a lot of us, and not all crazed liberals, who had a pretty good idea (and talked and wrote about) what was going to happen if the United States invaded Iraq for no particular reason -- at least no reason the government was sure of or could prove. Yeah, Saddam Hussein was a bad guy, no great distinction in much of the world, but there were those of us premature "defeatists" who tried to argue that the best we could hope for if we rolled our military dice in that sand was bloody sectarian chaos and civil war.

Actually, we were too optimistic and too patriotic. Many of us knew we could never bring democracy, stability and the American way of life to that part of the world. But we never for a moment thought that we would be incapable of controlling events, at least in the short run, or that we were capable of an incompetent, brutal and fearful occupation that would cripple us militarily and morally in the rest of the world. We were the good guys, not the guys capable of torture as a matter of policy.

So, there was the president, our president, last Monday morning on television, answering a challenge by reporters wanting to know if he agreed with our vice president's implication that anyone in Connecticut voting against the obsequious, self-righteous Joe Lieberman was emboldening "al-Qaida types" and sending the wrong message to terrorists abroad.

Said the president: "What all of us in this administration have been saying is that leaving Iraq before the mission is complete will send the wrong message to the enemy and will create a more dangerous world. ... In our judgment, the consequences for defeat in Iraq are unacceptable. I fully understand that some didn't think we ought to go in there in the first place. But defeat -- if you think it's bad now, imagine what Iraq would look like if the United States leaves before this government can defend itself and sustain itself. Chaos in Iraq would be very unsettling in the region."

Complete the mission? The mission is complete. Chaos in Iraq would be unsettling? There is chaos in Iraq.

"I will never question the patriotism of somebody who disagrees with me," he said, which was nice. "This has nothing to do with patriotism; it has everything to do with understanding the world in which we live ..."

Well, he finally got that right. This is not about patriotism; it is about arrogance and ignorance at the highest levels of a great democracy. Have you no shame, Mr. President? Or is it you and Vice President Cheney and Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld who have never understood the world in which we live and think that you can bully us and bully history into believing it was our doing, not yours?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ucrr/20060826/cm_ucrr/haveyounoshamemrpresident

[bleever]

1. Powerful piece.

The resurgence of the reality-based community over this decadent, antidemocratic regime has only just begun.

Rec'd.

[Protagoras]

2. To ask the question

is to have the answer.

[ooglymoogly]

3. shouldn't that read "have you no shame hr. dictator?" nt

[Marrak]

4. What I wanted to say Monday...

...but they kept changing my line of reasoning...
<>

[rman]

5. uhm, no - and what are you going to do about it?