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Old News

Feb 28, 2006

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The situation in Iraq is so volatile that conflicting spin and news cycles are bumping into each other. By way of illustration, here’s a screen capture taken from Memeorandum this afternoon.

Old News: The violence in Iraq is subsiding.

New News: Um, maybe not.

Old News (yesterday):

The US ambassador said the risk of civil war from last week’s crisis was over. …

… “That crisis is over,” US Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad declared.

“I think the country came to the brink of a civil war, but the Iraqis decided that they didn’t want to go down that path, and came together,” the ambassador told CNN. “Clearly the terrorists who plotted that attack wanted to provoke a civil war. It looked quite dangerous in the initial 48 hours, but I believe that the Iraqis decided to come together.”

New News (today):

Attacks in Baghdad, including a car bomb near a Shi’ite mosque, killed at least 60 people on Tuesday and U.S. President George W. Bush told Iraqis who fear civil war that they faced a choice between “chaos or unity”.

As deposed leader Saddam Hussein returned to court after the worst week of sectarian violence since the U.S. invasion, three bombs in quick succession killed 32 people. After dark, a car bomb killed at least 23 near the Shi’ite mosque and a market.

New polls reveal that both the American public and the troops in Iraq are heartily sick of the mess Bush made and want out. This suggests to me that people outside the winger base are not listening to what Bush says any more.

As I mentioned in the last post, a whopping majority are skeptical of the UAE ports deal. Today on television I saw a clip of Bush, with his most condescending smirk, saying “If there was any doubt in my mind or people in my administration’s minds that our ports would be less secure or the American people in danger, this deal wouldn’t go forward.”

In other words … trust me.

Tonight on ABC’s World News Tonight Bush will speak to Elizabeth Vargas in an exclusive interview. Viewers will get to hear Bush flat-out deny there will be a civil war in Iraq. They’ll hear him deny that his low poll numbers concern him — “I’ve got ample capital and I’m using it to spread freedom and to protect the American people.” They’ll hear him say that the UAE port deal will be confirmed after review; the only reason Congress and the American people are concerned is that they don’t know the stuff that he knows.

Personally, I think the boy has completely slipped his tether. He could get away with that “trust me” stuff after 9/11. He’s not getting away with it now. Yet he doesn’t know any other way to relate to the American people.

Seems to me the American people ain’t relatin’ back.

Spotlight

9 Comments

Anonymous • Feb 28, 2006 @7:06 pm

We have been told lies once again everything is going great in Iraq not true. A poll taken on how the troops feel about being in Iraq they want out. The civil war in Iraq has started and it not going to stop anytime soon. However, things that can be done are redeploy our troops,complete withdrawal of all forces,stay the course which is foolish. By the way Bush and Co poll continue to drop to 34%. It seems Bush and Co are caught between a rock and hard place cannot see the forest for the trees. I like the idea that the chorus for the I word is gathering steam.
Edward Deevy • Feb 28, 2006 @7:51 pm

I’ve been watching the unfolding debacle for the past few days and thinking about the conflict between the facts on the ground and what we are told by the neo-con cheerleaders. This post validated what I was thinking. The general testifying before the Senate committee this morning said this past week was “significant.” That’s about as close as any of these guys has come to accepting that hell is breaking loose…and there is nothing we can do about it.
Steve Nichols • Feb 28, 2006 @7:52 pm

I have a few Main Street Republicans who have been friends for years. One stopped voting Republican prior to 2004 because he couldn’t stomach the anti-gay bigotry. He was a family man and the founder of a moving company with $3 million in annual revenues.

Another was a friend from law school, we both started when we were about 40. He was a former CFO at a gun company. He’s pretty sheepish when we talk about Bush, and for some time has recognized he is worthless as a leader.

Over the past 5 years I have gradually moved to the position that I will not entertain anyone who supports the Republican Party, until such time as it purges its various bigots–anti-black, anti-gay, anti-woman, anti-Moslem. The Republicans have spent 40 years opening the doors to various bigots, and they now form the base.

These days, anyone who supports the Republican party is either a bigot, or is someone who tolerates bigotry (same difference, morally).
renate • Feb 28, 2006 @8:00 pm

If Iraq is not in a civil war I like to know what a civil war is.

never did I understand what exactly he did about terror that was so great? Afghanistan is getting bloodier by the day and Iraq is a mess and Guantanamo destroyed the moral high graounds for the US.
Swami • Feb 28, 2006 @8:42 pm

Anonymous— We’ll stay the course because it’s the foolish thing to do..Bush’s only option is to continue to sell pipe dreams of freedom being on the march and defend his arrogant blunder in Iraq with more lies and deceptions. If Bush had an ounce of wisdom he’d take heed of the old addage -The truth is always an option- and tell the American people what they already know, that Iraq is a lost cause and he never should have deceived us.. A sincere confession of his lies would be accepted by the American people. We are quick to forgive human weakness when displayed with a contrite spirit..But we bristle at the haughtiness and arrogance we have seen thus far from Bush…Remember back to the second inauguration? It was arrogance incarnate. A real leader would have adorned himself in a cloak of humility..but not Bush!
yellowdog democrat • Feb 28, 2006 @9:00 pm

Bush has destroyed our creditability with the entire world with his torture treatment. Why would any Muslim nation want to deal with us?
joanr16 • Feb 28, 2006 @9:38 pm

Friends, please correct me if I’m wrong, but is this the first time in history that U.S. military intervention STARTED a civil war in a foreign country? We blundered into an existing civil war in Vietnam. The CIA’s meddling may have set the fuse for a few in Central America. But it seems to me, this is new.
Swami • Mar 1, 2006 @1:11 am

I must be getting punchy..I think I just read that Bush will be stopping off in Islamabad. Pakistan in an effort to spruce up our image with Muslims…Did I read a joke?

Joanr16 — I would agree with your assesssment. However, not everybody would, I read a post over at LGF where they described the situation in Iraq and being the “age old conflict between the Sunnis and the Shites”. Nothing new here?

Civil war?..naw..Just minor labor pains for the birth of a new freedom loving and democratic Iraq..
felicity smith • Mar 2, 2006 @2:40 pm

I think you’re right Joany. Bush has always seen himself as another Lincoln, a liberator of the oppressed. Funds are being raised as we speak to put him on Mt. Rushmore. He’ll say that Lincoln started a civil war, leaving out the fact that the South was seceding from the Union. Actually Bush will be the inadvertent progenitor of a new form of government, an ineptocracy.