Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums General Common Interests Ok conservatives, George Will gets it.........

Having dealt firsthand with efeet, elitist, WASP East-Coast liberals (vacationing with a pack of them on Cape Cod during my teenage years probably has something to do with my strongly-held beliefs), I can fully understand where Bush gets his aggrivation with the undercurrents of indirect racism or elitism that if often shown in so-called progressive circles that tend to lean sharply towards the left on just about everything.

I'll make the safe assumption that this is the "unknown" party that his remarks were made towards, as it's rather apparent...

That doesn't excuse his piss-poor way of discussing this issue or the profound lack of timing or reason behind the remarks, though. I understand he's got a boat-load of fires to put out and manage, but the man has GOT to learn to

a) Become more tactful and savy on what he addresses and how he addresses it, when to talk and when to keep his mouth shut, and

b) Line up a speech coach because he's not doing himself any favors with his asides and ad-lib, off-the-cuff musings.

I'll agree that McClellan has had his work cut out for him lately as Press Secretary...

Note that I've been and still am a VERY adamant Bush supporter in terms of his foreign policy. The execution of it has been quite successful, though not without some hiccups along the way; some of which were to be expected (uprisings and unrest) and some that weren't (prisoner abuse).

What has changed is my tolerance of this administration's SEVERE bungling of getting their message and views across. Iraq is too important an issue to have fall and become unpopular due to his inability to line up the strategic importance that it holds for current/future US security and what will become a focal point of the "balance of power" in the Middle-East. For this to fail due to a lack of communication is unacceptable.

Back to Will's article, though...

I think it is a fair warning to the Bush administration in that they need to pay much more attention to a number of salient issues that have cropped up during reconstruction of Iraq; issues that appear to have only been paid lip-service to. Examples: I'm still fuming over the disgusting lack of post-war security of a number of sites that contain radioactive material (broken into, of course), though the military has shored some of that up. Not having any media liasons between the military and Al-Jazeera is another one that has pissed me off to no end. Finally, Will alludes to an an excellent point that the bulk of the Iraqi population will have a HELL of a time adjusting to the comforts and burdens of a democracy. It's going to take some time and that hasn't been a popular topic to discuss.

Put this way: Democracy came to a number of European countries over a decade ago; many of these populations are just now figuring out what it is, what to do with it and how to enjoy it. Iraq is going to be little different when things finally take hold.

They have a long and difficult path in front of them.

Machiavelli and Sun-Tzu apparently needs to be required reading material for Rumsfeld, as there needs to be a balaned mixture of heavy-handedness and skillful diplomacy and stiletto-sharp cunning introduced into settling the Shi'ite/Sunni/Kurdish aggrivation and unrest, as well as rooting out the rest of these insurgents as quickly as possible. The proper application of both would go a long way into smoothing the rocky path that now exists to Iraqi self-governance.

Iraq's recovery was guaranteed to be a long and burdensome task; situations like this are fluid and iterative by their very nature. So far, the Bush administration and Congress has done a fair job of addressing these challenges in light of all the issues that have cropped up.

Don't forget for one minute that we've toppled a hostile regime intent on causing the US harm in any fashion they could cook up after '91. Given Iraq's nuclear ambitions, WMD past-use and subsequent "disappearing" act of tons of agents they themselves claimed to have and terrorist support, combined with the UN's epic bungling of policing and monitoring these programs, 10 more years of "dips**t-lomatic" policy wasn't an option in light of the post 9/11 world in which we live in.

For some reason, this tends to be forgotten in this apparent orgy of post-war political and media-driven, self-loathing environment that oozes from the airwaves.