Right-wingers emboldening 'the terrorists'

Suddenly the American right-wing pundits and even legislators are starting to see the clarity of what the reality-based community has been saying all along. Iraq is a disaster, Bush has violated the US Constitution with his warrantless wiretaps and the Patriot Act doesn't improve national security.

Conservative voices all over the US are starting to mumble things like, "Bush failed in Iraq" and recently, MSNBC talk show host and former Republican congressman Joe Scarborough prodded his guests for an answer to the question, "Is George Bush's mental weakness is damaging America's credibility at home and abroad." Scarborough ran a caption for 10 minutes which asked his viewing audience, "IS BUSH AN 'IDIOT'?"

Guess what? The answer was an unequivocal "YES".

For 10 minutes, the talk show host grilled his guests about whether "George Bush's mental weakness is damaging America's credibility at home and abroad." For 10 minutes, the caption across the bottom of the television screen read, "IS BUSH AN 'IDIOT'?"

But the host was no liberal media elitist. It was Joe Scarborough, a former Republican congressman turned MSNBC political pundit. And his answer to the captioned question was hardly "no." While other presidents have been called stupid, Scarborough said: "I think George Bush is in a league by himself. I don't think he has the intellectual depth as these other people."

Welcome to reality Scarborough. Anybody who wasn't blinded by neo-con ideology saw that almost 4 years ago. And Scarborough defended Bush against that comment in 2002.

If Scarborough was commenting in isolation it might be written off as just another right-winger who'd gone off his medication, but there are more.

"Conservatives for a long time were in protective mode, wanting to emphasize the progress in Iraq to contrast what they felt was an unfair attack on the war by the Democrats and media and other sources," Rich Lowry, editor of the National Review, said in an interview. "But there's more of a sense now that things are on a downward trajectory, and more of a willingness to acknowledge it and pressure the administration to react to it."

Lowry's magazine offers a powerful example. "It is time to say it unequivocally: We are winning in Iraq," Lowry wrote in April 2005, chastising those who disagreed. This month, he published an editorial that concluded that "success in Iraq seems more out of reach than it has at any time since the initial invasion three years ago" and assailed "the administration's on-again-off-again approach to Iraq."

And, another one bites the dust.

Quin Hillyer, executive editor of the American Spectator, cited Lowry's column in his own last week, writing that many are upset "because we seem not to be winning"

And, another one gone.

Bush aides were bothered by a George F. Will column last week mocking neoconservative desires to transform the Middle East: "Foreign policy 'realists' considered Middle East stability the goal. The realists' critics, who regard realism as reprehensibly unambitious, considered stability the problem. That problem has been solved."

And, another one gone. Well, sort of. Suddenly George F. Will turns out not to be the Republican shill the reality-based community thought he was. Apparently the White House was hiding this fact all this time:

Bush advisers said that they never counted Will or some others now voicing criticism as strong supporters but that the president's political weakness has encouraged soft supporters and quiet skeptics to speak out.

Who knew?! You certainly couldn't tell from they way they yapped it up since 1999.

Thomas L. Friedman, a New York Times columnist who is not a conservative but has strongly backed the Iraq war, reversed course this month, writing that " 'staying the course' is pointless, and it's time to start thinking about Plan B -- how we might disengage with the least damage possible."

You mean like, "peace with honor"? Where the hell have we heard that sentiment before?

Uh oh. That sounds like V. I. E. T. N. A. M.

Can't be... or could it? Chuck Hagel, Republican senator and hard-ass Bush supporter was on, (of all places) FOX with Chris Wallace and said this:

The fact is we are where we are. We're not going to go back and replay or unwind the bad decisions, and I think we made them right from the beginning, beginning with the fact that we didn't have enough troops going in. But that's essentially irrelevant now.

It's how do we get out of this mess. We've got a very unstable Middle East, I think the most unstable Middle East we've seen since 1948. And you can measure that any way you want. The fact is the future of Iraq will be determined by the Iraqi people just like it was in Vietnam.

The only thing he left out was, "Murtha was right all along."

Hagel has said a lot more and Wallace wanted to know about it. Surprize! Hagel is changing is from tighty-whiteys to no shorts at all.

WALLACE: ... You've been very critical, as we've just heard, of U.S. policy in Iraq. And you have problems with NSA wiretaps and parts of the Patriot Act. When it comes to national security, are you closer to John Kerry than you are to George W. Bush?

HAGEL: Chris, I'm going to go back to the comment I made earlier. When it comes to war, Americans dying in a war, national security, it should never be held captive to a political agenda. I think that's wrong. I've said it's wrong.
I don't base my analysis and judgment and votes on war, national security, on a party position. I don't think that's the right thing to do. I don't think Americans really want us to do that.

Hmmm... excuse me while I call Bullshit!

Hagel might like to have a look at this little bit of record-keeping to see whether he voted party line or principle. From his voting record it looks very much like he supported everything he's now against. That's a flip-flop or a thong or something, but it isn't consistent.

So what's going on?

Easy.

The pundits, the politicians, and a good chunk of the American population do not like the idea of losing... at anything. And, they're losing big-time in Iraq. That would make the person who started the whole mess a loser.

It's an election year. American's don't vote for a loser. Bush is now clearly, well, besides being a moron, a loser.

And so is anybody who did and continues to support him. The Republicans are in a mad scramble. Yup, it looks like rats keeping an eye on the bilge water and sure enough it's rising.

And the White House isn't sure what to do, short of the inevitable October attack on Iran.

No worries. You can always go to the clown site and read this.