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[ron thigpen <ron AT fuzzsonic.com>]

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