FAIRY TALE?


The President’s speech on Iraq had all sorts of details about the future make-up of an Iraqi government but one strange aspect to it: not one Iraqi had anything to do with this plan.

This new government will have a President, two Vice Presidents and also a Prime Minister. Who came up with this idea?

Why do we think the Iraqis are going to like this plan any more than they have liked anything else we have done over there?

Watching the President make all these pronouncements, it became clear what the basic problem now is: G.W. Bush and his team have lost their credibility.

How many times can they be so wrong?

• WMD?

• The Iraqi people will greet us as ‘liberators’?

• “Major combat operations are over”?

• There are only 5,000 insurgents inside Iraq?

• “Bring ‘em on!”

• Killing Saddam and his sons will quiet down the insurgency?

• Toppling Saddam will end the torture and brutality?

• The prison abuse scandal is just the bad actions of “a handful of misguided soldiers”?


Why - now - are things going to get any better?

Why - now - should we believe anything our government says?

From here on out it is clear: Bush will be judged by results.

If Iraq calms down and finally appears to be headed toward a stable democracy, then he will be judged well.

But if the chaotic mayhem continues and Iraq spirals into a quasi-civil war, then G.W. Bush’s presidency will be thrown into the dustbin of history marked as a Total Failure.

Imagine letting these murderous thugs determine our presidential election!

Bush never thought this thing through and built in escape hatches for us to get out - or to encourage others to come in and share the burden and the rewards.

Iraq is shaping up as a total fiasco.

The best line about Bush’s speech came from my mother: “I don’t know which is a bigger fairy tale - this speech or the new Harry Potter movie?”

BUSH SPEECH


Here is what the President should do tonight - if he wants to not only do the right thing in Iraq but also to help our country. And it might also help him revive his sagging campaign, too.

“My fellow Americans, I am smart enough to know when I am wrong about something. I was - and am - wrong about the desire of the Iraqi people to have our troops rebuild their country for them.

“Clearly, we have done a wonderful job removing Saddam’s blood-thirsty and corrupt regime. But it is time to let Iraqis - and other Arabs and Muslims - rebuild Iraq. We have done our job there - and very, very well. But it is time for others to take the burden - and time for us to come home.

“Therefore, with the help of the UN and NATO, over the next 3 months we are going to replace our troops with Muslim troops from Jordan, Egypt, the Gulf States and Indonesia.

“Perhaps the Iraqi people will feel less offended by having their brethren provide security leading up to the creation of an Iraqi military and, of course, a democratically elected government.

“We should all feel proud of the effort by our troops in Iraq. Whatever mistakes have been made were not their fault; they were mine - and mine alone. It is time in this country that the boss - in every line of work - accept responsibility for mistakes made. And I do.

“The important thing here is that we set out to make the world a safer place by removing Saddam and his deadly henchmen. We succeeded.

“It is time to let the Muslim world police itself - with the knowledge that in the future we will not sit by whenever a tyrant threatens us or his neighbors. We - the international community - will act to prevent future Saddams from destabilizing the region and the world.

“American has always stood for freedom and liberty. We have given it to the Iraqis; now let us see if they can grow it and develop a modern, 21st century democracy.”


If President Bush made an announcement along these lines, he would be boosted in the polls by 10 points over night.

Admitting mistakes sells well in this country at a time when bosses always blame their subordinates for everything and live in a total state of denial.

The President would look honest and open and forthright. Who could attack that?

And getting out of Iraq is a necessity if Bush wants to win in November.

GOP PANIC


The Republican Party is in full panic mode.

President Bush’s tumbling approval ratings have sent a chill throughout Capitol Hill - especially among worried incumbents in difficult races this fall.

With his approval rating approaching that of his father’s at the same stage of the re-election race in 1992, this President Bush journeys up to the Hill today to try to calm down a nervous GOP and explain the latest plan on how to handle the clearly-deteriorating Iraq situation.

Yesterday’s spat between Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert and Senator John McCain over ‘sacrifice’ and who knows what about patriotism is a clear sign that tempers are fraying.

McCain has called on the GOP to rescind the last two tax cuts to pay for the Iraq war. He says there needs to be “ a shared sense of sacrifice in a war.”

Hastert, with Majority Leader Tom Delay standing next to him, blasted McCain - who spent almost 6 years as a POW in Hanoi - and said he ought to go to Bethesda Naval Hospital and Walter Reade Army Hospital to see “real sacrifice - the wounded soldiers out there.”

What in the world is the Speaker thinking?

He is giving McCain just the opening he is looking for to jump on Kerry’s ticket.

Nebraska Senator Chuck Hagel, a McCain ally, is also growing more critical of the Bush White House. He calls Bush, “a very isolated President.”

Mississippi Senator Trent Lott is calling for the return of former White House aide Karen Hughes - as if one staffer can change public opinion of a President.

Indeed, there is a Perfect Storm of bad events that is taking Bush into the Danger Zone for November:

1) Iraq is a total mess. Is it ‘winnable’ any longer? What defines a ‘win’? Or is it descending into total chaos?

Some conservatives are now coming out and voicing their total disgust for the whole adventure.

And more and more people just want “to get out of Iraq.”

Bush has lost the initiative on this signature issue of his presidency. It appears he, too, has no idea what to do over there.

2) Soaring gas prices are souring everyone on everything. This ‘hidden tax’ is undermining any earlier optimism about the economy. Inflation is creeping back into the cost of most goods because of it.

3) The result? People - overwhelmingly - want a “new direction” and “someone new” in November. That, of course, is bad news for the Bush-Cheney Campaign.

Thus they might have to resort to the politics of personal destruction and hope they can find enough dirt on Kerry to destroy him after the July Democratic Convention.

This is risky strategy: it assumes that there is something to find tha thasn’t already been found by any of Kerry’s many opponents over the years. And it also opens a rebuttal from the Kerry forces.

And, anyway, most voters dismiss ‘dirt-digging’ late in campaigns.

No, the best course for Bush is this: somehow calm down Iraq - quickly - and get gas prices to begin dropping - soon.

If he does, he has a chance.

If not, he may be another Jimmy Carter.

SINKING BUSH


All the polls now paint a similar picture: a deteriorating situation in Iraq, a ‘souring’ of opinion about the economy, rising gas prices - and a 2-1 view that the country is on the ‘wrong track’ - have all contributed to G.W. Bush’s lowest approval ratings of his presidency.

And this opinion is shared by all pollsters: Gallup, Pew, Fox News Dynamics, Rasmussen, NEWSWEEK and Zogby.

It is a general rule of politics that the incumbent’s approval rating at the beginning of the year - or certainly six months before an election - is a pretty good predictor of his/her Election Day tally.

For example, recent Presidents who were re-elected - Reagan & Clinton - scored in the low 50's on their election year approval ratings. And both won that November. (Clinton only garnered 49% of the vote in a three-way race while Reagan scored a landslide win over Fritz Mondale.)

Recent presidents who lost - Carter & Bush I - had under-50 and deteriorating approval ratings by this time in their election cycles. Their end results? Carter was blown out by Ronald Reagan and Bush got a paltry 37% of the vote in November 1992, matching his May approval ratings.

So does this mean that yet another Bush is going down the drain in November?

Well, he is in Big Trouble.

His problems:

1) Iraq: it is deteriorating daily - as signified this morning with the car-bombing assassination of the head of the Iraqi Governing Council in Baghdad. Every day brings more proof that the trend-lines are all downward in Iraq.

Furthermore, support at home for this occupation is slipping rapidly. The desire by many Americans “to just get out now” is growing stronger every day.

Every new revelation - from the prison abuse scandal to the Nick Berg beheading - just sickens Americans and makes them want the entire Iraq story to go away.

Team Bush has bet the ranch - and the White House - on Iraq. And right now they are losing the bet Big Time.

2) The perception that the economy is bad. Even though the economic data indicates that the economy is expanding, people don’t agree. They are quite down these days. Why? A number of factors: increased state and local taxes, increased cost of health care, increased cost of college tuition, and more hours working to increase productivity (to make up for fewer workers).

So the data may say one thing, but the people perceive another.

A reminder: in 1992 the economy came out of a recession yet then-President G.H.W. Bush lost because the voters perceived that things were still bad.

In politics, perception is reality.

3) Gas prices: this has become a major story - and is directly related to Iraq and the economy as issues in this year’s campaign.

As prices soar, it sours voters. And President Bush’s inability to get the prices to go down may hurt him terribly in November. Rising gas prices act as a tax and cause almost all other prices to rise. Plus, it is related to the mess in the Middle East.


Conclusion: President Bush and his White House have totally lost control of the agenda. They control almost nothing that is happening; thus they are forced to react to events as they unfold.

There is more and more talk of an early pull-out of US troops from Iraq. But that option would be a complete reversal of the Bush plan - and the entire war effort would be seen as a failure. His own hard-line supporters would accuse him of “cutting and running.”

Even a capture of Osama Bin Laden would not shift the debate back into Bush’s favor. It would be a major success but not enough to offset everything else.

So Bush has made his bed. Now he has to sleep in it - and hope that Iraq and the economy change for the better in the next few months.

If they don’t, he will follow his father back to Texas as one-term presidents who squandered huge post-war approval ratings and lost to left-wing liberals in a conservative country.

SINKING BUSH


All the polls now paint a similar picture: a deteriorating situation in Iraq, a ‘souring’ of opinion about the economy, rising gas prices - and a 2-1 view that the country is on the ‘wrong track’ - have all contributed to G.W. Bush’s lowest approval ratings of his presidency.

And this opinion is shared by all pollsters: Gallup, Pew, Fox News Dynamics, Rasmussen, NEWSWEEK and Zogby.

It is a general rule of politics that the incumbent’s approval rating at the beginning of the year - or certainly six months before an election - is a pretty good predictor of his/her Election Day tally.

For example, recent Presidents who were re-elected - Reagan & Clinton - scored in the low 50's on their election year approval ratings. And both won that November. (Clinton only garnered 49% of the vote in a three-way race while Reagan scored a landslide win over Fritz Mondale.)

Recent presidents who lost - Carter & Bush I - had under-50 and deteriorating approval ratings by this time in their election cycles. Their end results? Carter was blown out by Ronald Reagan and Bush got a paltry 37% of the vote in November 1992, matching his May approval ratings.

So does this mean that yet another Bush is going down the drain in November?

Well, he is in Big Trouble.

His problems:

1) Iraq: it is deteriorating daily - as signified this morning with the car-bombing assassination of the head of the Iraqi Governing Council in Baghdad. Every day brings more proof that the trend-lines are all downward in Iraq.

Furthermore, support at home for this occupation is slipping rapidly. The desire by many Americans “to just get out now” is growing stronger every day.

Every new revelation - from the prison abuse scandal to the Nick Berg beheading - just sickens Americans and makes them want the entire Iraq story to go away.

Team Bush has bet the ranch - and the White House - on Iraq. And right now they are losing the bet Big Time.

2) The perception that the economy is bad. Even though the economic data indicates that the economy is expanding, people don’t agree. They are quite down these days. Why? A number of factors: increased state and local taxes, increased cost of health care, increased cost of college tuition, and more hours working to increase productivity (to make up for fewer workers).

So the data may say one thing, but the people another.

A reminder: in 1992 the economy came out of a recession yet then-President G.H.W. Bush lost because the voters perceived that things were still bad.

In politics, perception is reality.

3) Gas prices: this has become a major story - and is directly related to Iraq and the economy as issues in this year’s campaign.

As prices soar, it sours voters. And President Bush’s inability to get the prices to go down may hurt him terribly in November. Rising gas prices act as a tax and cause almost all other prices to rise. Plus, it is related to the mess in the Middle East.


Conclusion: President Bush and his White House have totally lost control of the agenda. They control almost nothing that is happening; thus they are forced to react to events as they unfold.

There is more and more talk of an early pull-out of US troops from Iraq. But that option would be a complete reversal of the Bush plan - and the entire war effort would be seen as a failure. His own hard-line supporters would accuse him of “cutting and running.”

Even a capture of Osama Bin Laden would not shift the debate back into Bush’s favor. It would be a major success but not enough to offset everything else.

So Bush has made his bed. Now he has to sleep in it - and hope that Iraq and the economy change for the better in the next few months.

If they don’t, he will follow his father back to Texas as one-term presidents who squandered huge post-war approval ratings and lost to left-wing liberals in a conservative country.

PLAUSIBLE DENIABLITY


The Iraqi Prisoner Abuse Scandal threatens the following:

1) To undercut our credibility in the Muslim world.

2) To make it unlikely that we can ever “win” - whatever that is - on the ground in Iraq.

3) To cause George Bush to lose in November.


The real story has yet to be revealed:

The CIA is ultimately responsible for this moral and political disaster. The untold story of this mess is that these pathetic US soldiers and reservists did not dream up these degrading and de-humanizing actions on their own. Indeed, they were told to do this by CIA - and former CIA - personnel.

Ever since 9/11, the CIA has been obsessed with gathering human intelligence from captured Al Qaeda terrorists and other Muslim suspects. CIA interrogators have studied the interrogation techniques of our Arab allies in Jordan, Egypt and Pakistan and learned how to ‘break’ a suspect in order to get him to talk.

Fellow Muslims know how to do this - and they do things that no American should ever do.

What happened in this case is simple: CIA is using so-called ‘independent contractors’ - who are actually former CIA personnel now on consulting contracts - for plausible deniability. They - and the US military - can deny many things because of this murky chain of command.

But the truth is clear: the ‘independent contractors’ came into the prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan and ordered the poorly-trained reservists ‘fresh out of Macdonalds’ to “soften up the prisoners before the real interrogation begins.”

Such softening up included degrading and shaming these people and braking their will to resist.

Then the interrogators would move in for the kill.

What were/are they looking for?

Evidence of WMD and evidence of a definitive link between Osama bin Laden and Saddam’s regime, especially involving the 9/11 attacks.

In other words, the mandate from Langley was clear: in order to justify the war - retroactively - the interrogators were desperate to find the very justification for the war that we should have had before the war ever started.

What a mess!

And perhaps the worst part - and most diabolical - is the issue of “phantom detainees.” This is the instance where Iraqi prisoners were deliberately not listed on the official roll of prisoners or detainees.

In a deliberate violation of the Geneva Convention, our CIA cut-outs have copied the Soviet and Vietnamese systems: by not listing prisoners or POWs, they create a Second System that is secret - and entirely illegal.

Apparently many Iraqis are put into this ‘second system’ - and who knows what happens to them?

It is morally reprehensible and down-right un-American to lower our standards to those of the Muslims or the Vietnamese. We have to be better than other countries - not by saying we are better but by behaving better.

Bush and his underlings have greatly damaged the credibility of the United States and of the Presidency. Clinton was awful - and his sexcapades cheapened the Oval Office. But G.W. Bush has done lasting damage - from his obsession with Saddam instead of Osama all the way to the exaggerations over WMD and now to this disgusting example of a military and intelligence world run amok.

We have all asked many times before: why has Bush kept George Tenet on as Director of the Central Intelligence Agency?

This so-far unanswered question may cause Bush to lose in November.

DAILY BREAD



And give us our daily bread....


We are all familiar with this part of THE LORD’S PRAYER. But how many of us really think about that key phrase - daily bread - and understand its entire meaning?

On one level it is a request for just that - food - to eat and to sustain us each day. Back in biblical days food was often a scarce commodity; hunger an all-too common fact of life. So praying for food - and thanking God for it each day was common.

But, as with so many biblical references, there are other levels:

What is life if only to exist? Yes, we must eat to live - and, thank God, each day we are all getting enough to eat. (Or in many cases, too much to eat!)

But there is an equally strong need for ‘spiritual food’ - a ‘daily bread’ of faith that things will work out, that the struggle is worthwhile, that there is hope that something can come of our efforts.

Do you really believe we were placed on this Earth just to exist? Or are we part of a Bigger Picture - of God’s plan to create on this beautiful planet a society of people - in His image - which can live and work together to do good things for each other?

“Our daily bread” is the thirst and desire to do good things for others - whether they be our children or others. But life without such giving is a total waste of time.

And “daily bread” also means the skills and talents and work capability to do these things.

So many Americans are doing things - one way or another - for others: parents for their children, our soldiers trying to help bring peace and freedom to oppressed Arabs in Iraq and Afghanistan, teachers trying to help their students, doctors and nurses helping the sick and so many other instances. Their ‘daily bread’ is this drive to help others.

That drive - just as much as bread and meat - comes from God. And it is well worth praying for each and every day.

Our daily habits, too, determine our lives. The obesity which is sweeping this nation comes directly from eating too much each day. Here is a fascinating little fact: if you eat an extra 100 calories each day - say one chocolate chip cookie - in one year that one cookie per day will have added 10 pounds onto you.

So, in this case, we are eating too much daily bread!

If you want to lose 30 pounds, all you have to do is cut out 300 calories per day out of your daily diet and in one year you will have lost 30 pounds. Yes, you can play around with it: increase your fat-burning exercise to burn off 150 calories and then just cut 150 calories out of your diet.

The point is this: our daily habits are the key to life. How we think, what we eat, what we do each day will determine our lives.

Here is another amazing fact: if you read one hour each day on one specific subject, in one year you will be an expert on that particular subject. And if you read for one hour each day for three years on that subject, you will be one of the world’s experts on that subject.

All for one hour per day!

You see: our daily bread includes the self-discipline to use these precious hours each day to improve, to help others, to help our selves.

The daily drive to learn - to read and watch the news - is also a part of ‘our daily bread.’ We are part of an American community - and a world community.

As Americans, we need to thank God daily for allowing us to be here - either through the happenstance of birth or through immigration. The privilege of being an American is one of the greatest gifts possible.

The ongoing prisoner torture scandal in Iraq is a total disgrace. As Americans we must be ashamed that people wearing our uniforms would behave this way.

But - unlike repressive societies - we will expose it, correct it and punish those responsible. Let us just hope all the guilty get nailed instead of pawning off the responsibility on underlings.

“The truth shall set us free” is the way to go. And the key is to fight hard to expose all the truth - not some scripted cover-up version.

Part of our “daily bread” must be the request that we Americans live up to Ronald Reagan’s vision of America as a City on the Hill - a place all the world can look up to.

Unfortunately, our government all too often lets us down.