Duh Time Again

If the price weren’t so high – blood, credibility and money pouring into the Iraqi sands -- the antics of our government would be downright comical.

Take this howler: “[senior] U. S. [military] Officers Say Politics is the solution in Iraq” Oh, Du-UH. If Bush and the Boys had been the least interested in finding out what would happen in Iraq once Saddam was gone, they could have plunked a few coins in a pay phone and called some doddering but still very much alive British MI-5 types sitting around in their retirement homes and asked them, “What happened in Iraq’s last regime change in 1958, you know, the one that resulted in civil war and Saddam’s murderous rise to power?” The Brits would have given the Americans an earful. But the neocon Bush Boys had no interest in history or even a credible post-war plan. It was War on the Cheap with flowers and oil money to pay for it all. Duh.

Next up, the “Downing Street Memos.” First, they were ignored by a press obsessed with runaway brides and Michael Jackson. Next, they were buried in the back pages of the major newspapers. Finally, during one of Bush’s rare unscripted press conferences, this one while standing next to his co-conspirator, the English Prime Minister, Tony Blair, some enterprising reporter (apparently not one of the fake “journalists” the Administration had (has?) on their payroll) asked the President about the some of the contents of the Memos, you know, the part about the evidence for WMD being “thin,” about “fixing” the intelligence and facts around policy, not the other way around?

It was one of those great moments for Bush-watchers, the exciting opportunity to hear the man riff, off-script, out of control, his handlers cringing in the background as he starts the complex, prevaricating, shape-shifting, change-ringing, heart-stopping thrill ride known to the mothers of 10-year old boys who have been caught with their hands in the cookie jar, sons who won’t lie directly, but also won’t fess up, so they start their timeless I Didn’t Touch The Jar Because It Was Wednesday And Johnny Knew About The Jar But We Were Working Very Hard, Hard Working and The Team Was Moving Forward And Then The Dog Ate My Homework and See The Kitchen’s Better Off With The Jar Gone Can We Now Go Out For Pizza My Stomach Hurts Can I Have A Soda, Oh, Look, Daddy’s Home ploy, followed by a smirk.

For more Duh moments, consider the recent polls that only now show a slight majority of those polled believe they were not told the truth about the reasons for invading Iraq. Duh?

I knew from day one that something was very wrong when I watched then-Secretary of State Colin Powell pretending to pull rabbits out of his hat at the U.N. I knew this because if I know anything about Colin Powell, it’s this: He has always been The Good Soldier who would never put principle above his career or do anything to endanger his carefully maintained reputation. There is nothing of the late Colonel David Hackworth to be found in General Powell. Therefore, I knew while he would never directly lie or publicly rock any boats because that might put his career and reputation in jeopardy, he would weasel and skate right to the edge of conflation, both accepted methods of just following orders while insuring maximum plausible deniability later, should the need arise.

There were no rabbits at the U.N then, and while there may be a few rabbits hopping out of the Downing Street memos as Congressman John Conyers holds “unofficial” hearings in Washington to take “testimony” about what the President knew and when he knew it, I can guarantee this: Whatever new information may come out will be ignored by a Republican-ruled Congress that has put party loyalty ahead of principle, ethics, national interests or even security, Woodward & Bernstein are has-beens out on the high-rolling cocktail party circuit, “Deep Throat” is barely cognitive, the K-Street Lobbyists own Congress, credible investigative journalism has been killed off by partisan pundits, a lazy, corporate-run media in a ratings-race to the bottom in order to feed a clueless public more interested in runaway brides than run amok government, a public that thinks Bill O’Reilly is a “journalist,” and The Da Vinci Code is “historical fact.”

As I said, comedy, except for all the blood.