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  • From: ron thigpen <ron AT fuzzsonic.com>
  • To: "Internetworkers: http://www.ibiblio.org/internetworkers/" <internetworkers AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [internetworkers] Re: Uma - Oprah, Obama - Osama
  • Date: Fri, 30 Jul 2004 11:26:07 -0400

Tony Spencer wrote:

Either Bush is the biggest idiot the world has ever witnessed *OR* he is so
brilliant that he was able to pull the wool over the eyes of John Kerry and
the rest of Congress, the UN, Tony Blair and the rest of the coalition but
you can't have it both ways.

Since when is lying "brilliant"?

In my view he is an idiot for taking the unnuanced view that he could march in there, alone, John Wayne style, defeat Saddaam and then pacify the remains. The political strategy of selling this action _was_ bluntly effective, but also cynical and wrong.

All those quotes prove is that the administration was successful in lying to create a climate of fear where it was politically impossible to oppose the drive to war. They made a case for action without delay by invoking an immeninent threat. No time was left for validation. Trust was required and trust was given. Wrongly, as it turns out. There was no imminent threat. Taking the time to properly vet the story they were pushing would have exposed it's essential weakness.

Being capable of executing a short-term, politically successful strategy is certainly not synonymous with being brilliant. Any decent definition of brilliance that I could agree with would require both capability and the good judgement to know how to use it.

--rt





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